In a statement released Monday, doctors for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she developed a blood clot in her head, located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear.
However, she did not suffer a stroke or neurological damage, her doctors said, and they are confident she will make a full recovery.
On Sunday, Clinton spokesman, Phillipe Reines, said her doctors discovered the clot during a follow-up exam for the concussion she suffered earlier in December after fainting, falling and striking her head at home while battling a stomach virus.
Accordingly, Mrs. Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday so doctors could monitor her condition while treating the blood clot with anticoagulants to help dissolve it. Doctors said today that she will be released once the proper dosage for the blood-thinning medication has been established.
According to a statement from Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gig El-Bayoumi of George Washington University, Clinton is making excellent progress and is in good spirits.
Clinton has not been seen publicly since Dec. 7, fueling speculation by some that she was using her health issues to avoid testifying on the deadly attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans on Sept. 11.
The attack, which Clinton and the White House initially blamed on a video making fun of Muslims, has been the subject of much criticism and debate, resulting in a subsequent and scathing report finding serious failures of leadership and management in upper levels of the Administration.
Before the report was released, Mrs. Clinton took responsibility for the incident, yet she was never held accountable or even blamed. Rather, the report cited four other officials as responsible, all of whom have since resigned. However, numerous news agencies have reported that such officials were instead reassigned to different jobs within the current Administration.
Clinton had planned to step down as Secretary of State at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term, saying she plans to spend the next year resting – and insisting she has no intention of running a second campaign for president in 2016.
Meanwhile, questions surrounding her recent health issues continue. Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December, forcing her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Prior to that, she had only cancelled two scheduled overseas trips.
Then, on Dec. 13, it was announced that her condition had worsened after she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home recovering from the stomach virus.
Given the timing of Mrs. Clinton’s recent health fallbacks, combined with her lack of visibility in the public eye since Dec. 7, rumors are circulating about the possibility that Clinton has been recovering from facelift surgery or some other cosmetic procedure that requires weeks of downtime.
Whatever the case, Hillary Clinton is a popular and respected woman. According to a Gallup poll released Monday, Americans admire Hillary Clinton more than any other woman in the world, a title she’s claimed 17 times in the last 20 years.
Comments