BOSTON – Sen. Edward Kennedy gave a thumbs up to well-wishers and kisses to relatives as he walked out of the hospital yesterday, a day after learning he has a cancerous brain tumor.
A square bandage at the back of his head marked the spot where doctors performed a biopsy Monday that led them to diagnose the Massachusetts Democrat with malignant glioma. Experts say such tumors are almost always fatal.
Kennedy's dogs, Sunny and Splash, met him at the hospital door. Hospital workers and well-wishers greeted Kennedy with applause. Before he and his wife, Vicki, got into a dark Chevrolet Suburban, he kissed his daughter, Kara, and his niece Caroline Kennedy, and embraced his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.
The senator departed with a wave as television news helicopters followed his 75-mile trip south to his Cape Cod home. Along the way, he could be seen waving to nearby motorists from the front passenger seat of his SUV. He took a walk on the beach with his two Portuguese water dogs as soon as he arrived.
“Good to be back home,” he told waiting reporters before heading off for a sail on his sloop, Mya.
Doctors said Kennedy “has recovered remarkably quickly” from the brain biopsy. They said he will recuperate at his home over the Memorial Day weekend while awaiting further test results that will help determine his treatment. “He's feeling well and eager to get started,” said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a top neurologist at Massachusetts General, and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary care physician.
The 76-year-old senator, the last son in a famed political family, was diagnosed with a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe – which helps govern sensation, movement and language – after suffering a seizure in his home Saturday morning. Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year.
“It's treatable but not curable. You can put it into remission for a while but it's not a curable tumor,” said Dr. Suriya Jeyapalan, a neuroncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
In an e-mail Tuesday, Vicki Kennedy told friends the grim diagnosis was “a real curveball” that left the family stunned even as Kennedy joked and laughed with them. She expressed pride in how her husband was handling the news. “Teddy is leading us all, as usual, with his calm approach to getting the best information possible,” she wrote in an e-mail to friends.
In Washington, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving member of the Senate, wept as he prayed for “my dear, dear friend, dear friend, Ted Kennedy” during a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor.
