Jimmy Carter to discuss cancer diagnosis publicly

“At first, I thought it was confined to my liver and that the operation had completely removed it, so I was quite relieved”, Carter told reporters in Atlanta Thursday.

“I’ve had a wonderful life, thousands of friends; I’ve had an exciting and adventurous gratifying existence”, Carter said.

The cancer’s spread was discovered during surgery to remove a tenth of his liver on August. 3, Carter said. Doctors removed about 1/10 of his liver during the surgery, he said.

Carter said he is feeling well and was due for his first found of radiation Thursday afternoon. He said he would begin radiation treatment Thursday afternoon.

The doctor for former President Jimmy Carter says he will be getting cancer treatment that doesn’t have the toxicity that treatments might have had even 20 years ago.

Despite the diagnosis, Carter, 90, said he felt well and hadn’t experienced any weakness.

The former president added: “I’m ready for anything and looking forward to a new adventure”. Carter said during the morning news conference that the Obamas had called him to wish him well.

Doctors will continue to scan his body to determine where the melanoma originated.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to worldwide conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”. While he says his life is in the hands of God, he wants to do everything he can to help himself fight.

In a wide-ranging interview last month about his life with Reuters Editor-at-Large Sir Harold Evans, Carter reflected on his childhood in a home without running water or electricity and his concerns about ongoing racial prejudice in the United States. He said it is likely that other spots of cancer would show up elsewhere in his body.

Carter’s presidency is perhaps best known for the Iran hostage crisis, which saw 52 Americans held in Tehran for 444 days following the Islamic Revolution. “It tends to be more resistant to conventional treatments such as lower doses of radiation and traditional chemotherapy”, he said.

Carter said he has received well-wishing phone calls from a host of powerful people, including President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, former president Bill Clinton and his wife and presidential hopeful Hillary, and both former presidents Bush. He clearly worries about the risk of the disease spreading to his pancreas, a cancer that has killed four members of his family already.

But his work after leaving the White House has also been widely praised.

“I plan to teach Sunday school this Sunday and every Sunday, as long as I’m physically and mentally able, in my little church”, he said.

Carter says he knew about the mass soon after he had to cut short his participation in a Carter Center election-monitoring trip to Guyana in May after suffering a cold.