Doctors: Blood clot located in Clinton’s head

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton developed a blood clot in her head but did not suffer a stroke or neurological damage, her doctors said Monday. They say they are confident that she will make a full recovery.

In a statement that revealed the location of the clot, Clinton’s doctors said it is in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She is being treated with blood thinners to help dissolve the clot, the doctors said, and she will be released once the medication dose has been established.

Clinton, 65, is making excellent progress and is in good spirits, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said in a statement.

Clinton, who was spending a second day at a New York hospital, developed the clot after suffering a concussion earlier in December. She had fainted, fallen and struck her head at home while battling a stomach virus, her spokesman said. She has not been seen publicly since Dec. 7.

Phillipe Reines, her spokesman, said her doctors discovered the clot Sunday while performing a follow-up exam on the concussion. She was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Clinton’s complication ‘‘certainly isn’t the most common thing to happen after a concussion’’ and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University’s stroke center.

The area where Clinton’s clot developed is ‘‘a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull — it’s how the blood gets back to the heart,’’ Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would likely be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

‘‘Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist,’’ said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. ‘‘Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn’t a problem.’’

It isn’t uncommon for presidential candidates’ health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

‘‘Wouldn’t that be exciting,’’ House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. ‘‘I hope she goes — why wouldn’t she?’’

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

‘‘Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl,’’ former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said in December. ‘‘The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level.’’

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Meanwhile, websites have already cropped up hawking ‘‘Clinton 2016’’ mugs and tote bags.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had cancelled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced on Dec. 13.

This isn’t the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband’s second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton’s three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of Clinton’s ailment after she cancelled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report on the attack she had commissioned that found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

Associated Press

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13 responses to “Doctors: Blood clot located in Clinton’s head”

  1. It was not long ago we saw Hillary smiling and smirking at the deaths and suffering of Muslims. Well now her time draws near, and we now will be smiling at her suffering and soon to be death. What goes around comes around.

    1. master09 Avatar

      You poor people blame the world for what you have been doing to each other. Muslims have been killing each other for ever. The Arabs have been at each others throat Muslim against Muslim , but Arabs always point finger. Assad killed Iraq killed their own and the list goes on and you Muslims keep pointing finger. Lol

      1. Constantin7 Avatar
        Constantin7

        People who are at fault or who have an inferiority problem always blame others for their own misfortunes and cheer for the death and suffering of others, Christians in particular. Everybody gets sick in their life time, and everybody is going to die sooner or later while Muslim fanatics blame all their problems on Christians because, otherwise, their Islam and Shariaa is a perfect system under which the whole world would prosper. Look at Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan (just to name 2 islamic counries) they are examples of this perfect Islamic system where people “enjoy” living…..
        They blame Christians and Jews, but they buy all their products, goods and food, they stand in line to emigrate to any Christian country, they buy property and houses in Christian areas to live among Christians, and yet they hate the Christians and Jews and their objective is to eliminate them eventually from the earth and install Shariaa law. Strange these people, they bite the hand that feeds them…

        1. Western leaders and their Arab puppets are experts at feeding Muslims with one hand and killing them with the other. The sooner we get rid of these puppets and their influences , the better the region will be. Muslims have been deceived by the west for way too long, they have payed a big price , and the lessons learned will last generations once the rightly guided caliphate is esttablished . Unfortunately , people deserve the leaders they get , and that was the price they paid for their ignorance. It was a hard hit. Let’s hope they don’t need to take an even harder hit before they wake up.

    2. according to your logic of what goes around comes around, the suffering and death of muslims may be the result of bad  deeds they commited.in their past right? 

      all of us are subject to reaping what we sow and non of us should resort to smiling at anyones misfortunes and suffering!
      no one gets away with any acts of evil against anyone….god does not over look any of it!  we just have to learn and accept that god has a different time table than we do.

      america is not perfect nor angelic but I am at a loss as to why moslems never put more focus and  outrage on how many thousand moslems die every year for decades now at the hands of other moslems.

    3. Prophettttt Avatar
      Prophettttt

      Btru2u, One should never take pleasure of other people’s misfortune,especially when it is illness and health issue. Although I have been a big fan of her husband,I’ve never been a fan of this lady,and as a matter of fact, I never liked anything about her,but Now that she is sick ,I wish her well,and this forum is a witness to my criticism of everything she was about. We’re minutes away from a new year,where people wish happiness and health to others, I urge you to wish her well too. Happy New Year.

  2. It was not long ago we saw Hillary smiling and smirking at the deaths and suffering of Muslims. Well now her time draws near, and we now will be smiling at her suffering and soon to be death. What goes around comes around.

    1. master09 Avatar

      You poor people blame the world for what you have been doing to each other. Muslims have been killing each other for ever. The Arabs have been at each others throat Muslim against Muslim , but Arabs always point finger. Assad killed Iraq killed their own and the list goes on and you Muslims keep pointing finger. Lol

      1. Constantin7 Avatar
        Constantin7

        People who are at fault or who have an inferiority problem always blame others for their own misfortunes and cheer for the death and suffering of others, Christians in particular. Everybody gets sick in their life time, and everybody is going to die sooner or later while Muslim fanatics blame all their problems on Christians because, otherwise, their Islam and Shariaa is a perfect system under which the whole world would prosper. Look at Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan (just to name 2 islamic counries) they are examples of this perfect Islamic system where people “enjoy” living…..
        They blame Christians and Jews, but they buy all their products, goods and food, they stand in line to emigrate to any Christian country, they buy property and houses in Christian areas to live among Christians, and yet they hate the Christians and Jews and their objective is to eliminate them eventually from the earth and install Shariaa law. Strange these people, they bite the hand that feeds them…

        1. Western leaders and their Arab puppets are experts at feeding Muslims with one hand and killing them with the other. The sooner we get rid of these puppets and their influences , the better the region will be. Muslims have been deceived by the west for way too long, they have payed a big price , and the lessons learned will last generations once the rightly guided caliphate is esttablished . Unfortunately , people deserve the leaders they get , and that was the price they paid for their ignorance. It was a hard hit. Let’s hope they don’t need to take an even harder hit before they wake up.

    2. Prophettttt Avatar
      Prophettttt

      Btru2u, One should never take pleasure of other people’s misfortune,especially when it is illness and health issues. I’ve never been a fan of this lady,and as a mater of fact, I never liked anything about her,but Now that she is sick, I wish her well.We’re minutes away from a new year,where people wish happiness and health to others, I urge you to wish her well too. Happy New Year.

  3. ” Clinton developed a blood clot in her head but did not suffer a stroke or neurological damage”

    Damn!!!! :((

  4. ” Clinton developed a blood clot in her head but did not suffer a stroke or neurological damage”

    Damn!!!! :((

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