Despite his deadly brain tumour, Ted Kennedy continues to make a remarkable recovery
TED KENNEDY has had to handle bad news from doctors before. In 1964, he broke his back and nearly died when he was thrown from a crashing plane on the way to accept his renomination for the US Senate at the Massachusetts Democratic convention. He campaigned from his hospital bed while recovering - and won.
When his son Ted Jr was 12 years old and losing a battle with cancer, his father made the difficult decision to have the boy's leg amputated. The son is now a 46-year-old advocate for disabled rights.
Five years ago, Kennedy's daughter, Kara, was told that she had inoperable lung cancer and only a year to live. Kennedy refused to believe the prognosis, and found a different doctor who operated on her - successfully.
And now, after years of cheating death repeatedly, Ted Kennedy is facing a deadly brain tumour the same way he has faced every misfortune that has befallen the Kennedy family: with both barrels blazing.
"The man never quits," says a long-me friend, retired senator Alan Simpson. "He's indefatigable. He's a fighter. I asked him how he was doing, and he said: 'Al, life is a bowl of cherries.'''
Senator Orrin Hatch, another close friend from across the aisle, says Kennedy told him: "I've been given a bad hand. But I'm not going to let it get me down. I'm going to fight back, and do everything I possibly can."
Kennedy, now aged 76, has spent much of the summer in hospitals. The cancer, which was discovered in May, required brain surgery in June, and daily chemotherapy and radiation treatments for six weeks after that. But the veteran senator has still found time and energy in the past three months to:
• Fly to Washington in the middle of treatments to cast a decisive vote in favour of legislation that would prevent a sharp cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
• Orchestrate bipartisan talks on a universal health insurance bill he hopes to have ready for Congress to consider by the time a new president is inaugurated.
• Form a non-profit group with friends to raise money and build an institute in Boston, next door to the John F Kennedy Presidential Library, that will be dedicated to research and education about the US senate.
(...)
Dogged perseverance has become something of Ted Kennedy's signature after 46 years in the Senate and 40 as patriarch of his family.
"Most legislators burn out," says former vice-president Walter Mondale, another Kennedy contemporary. "And he, for some reason, has not. He has been able to use his expanding congressional advantages - seniority, the right committees, relationships, huge staffs and connections with groups all over the country and the world. He's maintained that kind of internal excitement and drive for nearly 50 years." (...)
Most scholars of the Senate now consider Kennedy to be one of that body's ablest legislators. Political commentator David Shribman put it this way: "His brothers' words are in large letters on the sides of buildings and in the hearts and memory of a nation. But the youngest brother is the fine-print Kennedy. His words are in the fine print of the nation's laws."
(...) Lately Ted Kennedy has been researching experimental treatments, which would be a logical next step if the cancer returns. "I think if he can get that immune system up to where he can tolerate being around a lot of people, his intention is to come back [to the Senate] after this recess," says Hatch.
About 10,000 cases of malignant glioma are diagnosed each year in the US, and only about half of those patients survive one year. After two years, perhaps 25 per cent are still alive. However, new drugs are extending survival in some cases, researchers say, and some patients survive longer than four years.
The grimness of his prognosis has not escaped Kennedy, and he's concentrating on burnishing his political accomplishments, friends in the Senate say.
Now that the most difficult phase of his treatment appears to be over, Kennedy has had more free time to bask in the company of family, friends and supporters from across the country.
"He has a wonderful sense of humour," Simpson says. "His laugh will just carry. I can hear it at this instant. He'll throw his big leonine head back, and . . . what a laughter."
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