Cindy McCain said Friday she and her husband, U.S. Sen. John McCain, are “filled with gratitude” to medical caregivers and friends who have rallied around them in the year since her husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
The six-term senator and former prisoner of war was diagnosed with the deadly form of cancer after he underwent an emergency craniotomy to remove a blood clot over his left eye. The 81-year-old senator has been absent from the Capitol since late last year and has been convalescing from the effects of chemotherapy and radiation at the McCains’ cabin in Cornsville.
In her statement to the Arizona Republic, Cindy McCain did not say specifically how her husband of 37 years is doing.
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Here is Cindy McCain’s full statement from the Arizona Republic:
Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the surgery that discovered my husband had a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma. Though this diagnosis has brought many challenges, our hearts are nevertheless filled with gratitude on this occasion.
First, we are deeply indebted to the medical professionals at Mayo Clinic, the National Institutes of Health, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and the caregivers working with us here in Cornville for their superb care of John, and their amazing efforts to treat this terrible disease and its effects. That he is still with us one eventful year later, still working at getting stronger, still engaged in the life of his family and our country, is as much a testament to their dedication, skill, and compassion as it is to his fighting spirit. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
We are immensely grateful as well to all the health professionals working diligently on many fronts and with encouraging results to find a cure for this disease. John and our family have great confidence that someday soon a glioblastoma diagnosis will not be the grim news that it is today, thanks to medical advances that will relieve the suffering of so many. We are in awe of your devotion and achievements.
Finally, and most importantly, to our friends, John’s colleagues, and the thousands and thousands of Arizonans, Americans and people of good will on every continent, who have called and written to offer their assistance, their encouragement and their love for John, we are humbled and thankful beyond adequate expression.
John has tried always to help people in need of his help. As he has always reminded us, he has been rewarded and repaid, again and again, by the gratitude and kindness of others. But never has that been made clearer to the McCain family than it has these last 12 months as so many generous souls, many of them strangers to us, have shown us such concern and decency. Thank you. You are in our hearts forever.
Gratefully,
Cindy McCain
In this July 13, 2017, file photo, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain leaves a meeting at the U.S. Capitol. He has been absent from the Senate since late last year. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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