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| FILE - In this June 10, 2011 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waves as the arrives at Lusaka International Airport in Lusaka, Zambia. Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month. Spokesman Philippe Reines says her doctors discovered the clot during a follow-up exam Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton developed a blood clot in her head but did not suffer a stroke or neurological damage, her doctors said Monday. They say they are confident that she will make a full recovery.
In a statement that revealed
the location of the clot, Clinton's doctors said it is in the vein in
the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She is
being treated with blood thinners to help dissolve the clot, the doctors
said, and she will be released once the medication dose has been
established.
Clinton, 65, is making excellent
progress and is in good spirits, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco
Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University
said in a statement.
Clinton, who was spending
a second day at a New York hospital, developed the clot after suffering
a concussion earlier in December. She had fainted, fallen and struck
her head at home while battling a stomach virus, her spokesman said. She
has not been seen publicly since Dec. 7.
Phillipe
Reines, her spokesman, said her doctors discovered the clot Sunday
while performing a follow-up exam on the concussion. She was admitted to
New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Clinton's
complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a
concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or
head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a
neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is
not involved in Clinton's care.
The area where
Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a
big vein inside the skull - it's how the blood gets back to the heart,"
Goldstein said.
Blood thinners usually are
enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if
her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it,
Goldstein said.
Clinton had planned to step
down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's
second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained
a question.
Democrats are privately if not
publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about
running for president in 2016?
After decades
in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She
has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for
the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely
closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if
she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.
Her
age - and thereby health - would likely be a factor under
consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were
elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early
jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a
prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.
Not
that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political
implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about
her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion
that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.
"Some
of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a
Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator.
"Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president,
and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and
it wasn't a problem."
It isn't uncommon for
presidential candidates' health - and age - to be an issue. Both in 2000
and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too
old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.
Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity - and her political strength - are ubiquitous.
Obama
had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started
zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four
years from now, should she choose to take that leap.
"Wouldn't that be exciting," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes - why wouldn't she?"
Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.
"Trying
to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," former House Speaker and
2012 GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said in December. "The
Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."
Americans
admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a
Gallup poll released Monday - the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has
claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found
that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for
president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Meanwhile, websites
have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.
Clinton
returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a
stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and
forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until
then, she had cancelled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe
after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the
February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Her
condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion
while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It
was announced on Dec. 13.
This isn't the first
time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her
husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising
for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to
diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.
Beyond
talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State
Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who
questioned the seriousness of Clinton's ailment after she cancelled
planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the
U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Clinton
had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report on the attack
she had commissioned that found serious failures of leadership and
management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for
insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for
the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed.
Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been
reassigned.
