Jimmy Carter: Former US President begins cancer treatment

And on October 1, Carter will turn 91. He underwent his first treatment Thursday afternoon.

“I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages”, Carter said, referring to the failed April 1980 effort to get the diplomats.

“Accommodate changing times, but think unchanging principles” another basic attitude that has paid off for me sometimes”.

Asked Thursday whether, at this point of reflection on his long and full live, he would have done anything differently, he answered with the kind of self-deprecation and humor that was a hallmark of this unique news conference.

Carter added that he is confident in his doctors and they’ve all been working together as a team. That will take place over the next couple of months. “Had he received this diagnosis five years ago, he would have had nearly no treatment options available to him”, Turnham says.

His treatments are scheduled to last for three months.

Carter said he felt good, with only slight pain after the liver surgery.

JIMMY CARTER: For a number of years, Rosalynn and I have planned on dramatically reducing our work at Carter Center. In the meantime, Jason Carter said he expects his grandfather to spend time with his wife and do a lot of fishing. They had to remove a tenth of Carter’s liver to fully excise the tumor, he said. He explained his disease and treatment in great clinical detail, and reflected at length on his life and his accomplishments.

“We can only pray for him”.

Several of Carter’s relatives died of pancreatic cancer, but that tends to show up earlier in life. He said he would re-arrange his schedule to undergo treatment at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta. But he cautioned against the idea that Carter can be “cured”.

“There is a chance of cure”, even with tumors in the brain, said Dr. Mario Sznol, a melanoma specialist at Yale Cancer Center. On his return, doctors found a small tumor on his liver and diagnosed melanoma, which was later found to have spread to four spots on his brain.

After initially hearing the news, “I just thought I had two weeks left”, Carter said.

“I’m an acquiescent and cooperating patient, and within the bounds of my judgment, I will do what the doctors recommend to extend my life as much as possible”, he said. I’ve had an exciting adventurous and gratifying existence. He cut short an election monitoring trip to Guyana in May after falling ill. While Jonathan Allen of Vox said on Hardball just now that the one thing he faulted in Carter’s post-presidency was his statements about Israel. But he wanted to complete a book tour before the surgery, and delayed telling others until the diagnosis was certain.

His “plain-spoken” nature helped Democrats retake the White House in 1976 in the wake of President Richard Nixon’s impeachment.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and founding the nonprofit Carter Centre in his home state of Georgia.

Doctors will continue to scan his body to determine where the melanoma originated. He’s now more optimistic, placing his fate in the hands of God.