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Rooting for Teddy Kennedy

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While I’ve never been of a fan of Massachusetts’ senior Senator, I currently myself rooting for Teddy Kennedy. He was diagnosed earlier today with a malignant glioma, a cancerous brain tumor.

Having watched a cousin who is very dear to me deal with a brain tumor, I know how traumatic such diagnoses can be. Yet, her tumor was not as malignant as his. When she finally found a responsible physician, he helped direct her to a surgeon who was able to operate. Fourteen years later, I am happy to report, she’s alive, healthy and physically very active.

Let us hope that the senator finds the quality of care she had.

That we do not like his politics or his rhetoric should not prevent us recognizing his humanity and hoping for his recovery. While born to a wealthy and well-connected political family, Senator Kennedy has experienced more tragedy in his life before his fortieth birthday than most people see before their seventieth. His mother lived well past her one-hundredth birthday, but he was the only one of her sons to reach fifty, with his eldest brother dying in World War II and his two remaining brothers assassinated.

Today, our prayers are with the senior Senator from Massachusetts.

Comments

  1. I want Kennedy out of the Senate. But, I want him out in the right way: because people (MA voters) finally decided to see through his destructive socialist politics and stop supporting him. I do NOT want him out in *this* way (i.e., personal misfortune).

  2. I had a dog who had a similar problem. Sadly, the effect of the tumor and her seizures fundamentally changed her personality, and she died within a few months. I sincerely hope that he and his family do not have to endure any of that. Brain tumors are one of the scariest illnesses there can be.

  4. P.S. I have also lost someone to brain cancer. My point with Kennedy is, I can’t root for him but neither am I rooting against him. On the level of personal health, I wish him well.

  5. Thanks for the civility. It’s great to see we can all disagree on politics (and religion and other issues) but that we can still wish well those we disagree with.

  7. My brother made a smart aleck comment when we heard about Teddys condition. I told him to shut up. We can all be civil. Kennedy is a hard working civil servant. We can disagree with him 100% of the time on politics but good lord are we not all of the human race? I’ve always said I respect a polititian like Ted Kennedy, who is predictable and grounded in a philosopy. The most maddening is a pol who changes with the wind, for their own personal fortunes. You always knew where Kennedy was on the issues….I’m not sure you can say that about most pols now adays. Cancer is devastating to a family. And they deserve our prayers.

  8. I must be the only one wanting him to resign so he spend his remaining time with his family?

    So that a less experienced Democrat (Being from MA, they will be a Democrat) can take his place and have less clout, less experience and less of a national following.

  12. Senator Ted Kennedy has been on my mind a great deal since I finally heard the news about his cancer Tuesday evening. I know what he and his loved ones are going through.

    My sister lost her battle with cancer in the brain the day before Thanksgiving Day 2006. And on Thanksgiving I thanked our Lord for finally taking her. I hope the Kennedy family does not have to go through what we did.

    As the summer of ’04 ended we gathered at my sister’s home to celebrate the MRI confirming that two years of chemo and radiation had destroyed cancer in her lungs. She complained of a headache that never seemed to go away but we thought nothing of it. Then in October she suffered a seizure and doctors found a tumor in her brain. They removed a plum-sized tumor. She never seemed to fully recover from that surgery; her personality changed and she had short term memory problems. Persistent headaches returned in January 2006 and doctors found a cluster of small tumors in her brain. Laser “surgery” in March failed to kill or shrink the tumors. By June we knew the tumors were growing and doctors said there was nothing they could do. On the 4th of July, using a walker, she was able to go out to dinner with us. But by Labor Day she couldn’t sit up in bed without assistance although she could spend hours in an easy chair or her wheelchair if we lifted her out of bed and seated her. Within a few weeks she was confined to her bed. I never imagined that things would progress so rapidly. Then, during the saddest week of my life, I got a court order to void her partner’s power of attorney and from 1,500 miles away had her city police and a caseworker from her state’s adult protective services remove her from her home and take her to her hospital’s hospice, where she died peacefully a few days later.

    I would not wish the eperience of those years on anyone. If Kennedy’s situation is “bad” I hope for his family’s sake that he goes quickly.

    It took me a long time to accept Senator Kennedy but then I came to believe that he did, indeed, represent the people of Massachusetts. And under our constitutional system the people of Massachusetts have a right to elect a liberal just as my state’s voters have a right to send a social conservative to the Senate.

    I find it hard to believe that I was still in college when Ted Kennedy was elected to the Senate to take the seat previously held by John Kennedy. And even harder to believe the one time playboy has as a senator accomplished more than his brothers John and Robert. OOnly two men, Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd, have served longer in the Senate.

    I have to agree with one of the election night pundits: whether one agrees or disagrees with Kennedy’s politics, when it comes to impacting public policy Ted Kennedy would have to rank among the top ten senators in the Senate’s history.