Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment

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Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment
Posted by Olog-hai on Sat Mar 24 22:28:32 2012 edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Reuters Chávez flies to Cuba to begin radiation therapy By Daniel Wallis Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:05pm EDT CARACAS (Reuters) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez flew back to Cuba on Saturday to begin radiation treatment for cancer, but said he was in good shape and would be back home in several days. The socialist leader's latest trip to Havana will heighten anxiety among supporters worried about his health, fan rumors of a power struggle among his top aides, and leave Chávez absent just as his election rival is stepping up a campaign tour. Since making a triumphant return to Caracas from Cuba a week ago after a third operation in less than a year to remove a malignant tumor from his pelvis, the 57-year-old had been saying he would start radiation therapy soon. But until Saturday he had not revealed whether he would go to Cuba or stay in Venezuela for the treatment, which is expected to leave him weaker during his campaign to win a new six-year term at an October 7. vote. Chávez has no clear successor. "I have decided, on the recommendation of my medical team and my political team, to begin the radiation treatment tomorrow," Chávez said during a televised cabinet meeting on Saturday before leaving for Maiquetia international airport. As he addressed white-clad troops gathered on the runway there, government ministers looked on, grim faced. He said he might have more radiation treatment in Venezuela in the future. Little is known about what kind of cancer the president has, nor how serious it is. So big questions remain about his future. Chávez has dominated Venezuelan politics for the last 13 years, and his illness has shocked voters in South America's biggest oil exporter in the run-up to the election. Some have questioned how fit he would be to govern if he won, and his treatment is expected to stop him from conducting the kind of man-on-the-street campaign that has worked so well in the past to help him drive forward his leftist "revolution." Sunday will mark four weeks since Chávez' most recent surgery at Havana's high security Cimeq Hospital. "Thank God, yesterday they removed the last stitches that were left from the operation. All very good," he said. "I'm walking much better ... without any complications. A month after the operation, we're ready for the radiation treatment, which will last for around four or five weeks." The opposition has called on Chávez to name a formal replacement during his absences in Havana - a proposal he rejects, preferring to govern from his hospital bed. "I'm sure this decision (to return to Cuba) will be criticized by some poisonous opposition spokesmen," he said. "But I am certain in my heart that the great majority of Venezuelans are with me and are committed to my full recovery. ... I'll be back in a few days." "Polls For All Tastes" Chávez' weaker figure contrasts sharply with the youthful, energetic image presented by his rival, basketball-loving 39-year-old Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles. But most recent polls have given Chávez a healthy lead over Capriles, mainly thanks to massive state spending on popular social projects, as well as his charisma and strong emotional connection with the country's poor majority. Venezuelan opinion polls, however, have long been highly divergent and controversial, with accusations of bias filling the airwaves every time a new one is published. Three surveys that came out this month gave Chávez a big lead in voter intentions of between 52 and 57 percent, versus 22 to 34 percent for Capriles. Then a fourth poll put the pair just one point apart: 46 percent for the president and 45 percent for his opponent. "Haha. There are polls for all tastes," a pro-Chávez political scientist, Nicmer Evans, joked in a Twitter exchange this week with an opposition blogger who suggested some pollsters were mere "briefcase companies," while another might exist only in its owner's imagination. Before ending Saturday's cabinet meeting and preparing to leave for Cuba, the president taunted the opposition again, calling them the candidates of the far-right who were determined to bring chaos to Venezuela, but would lose at the ballot box. "You gentlemen of the opposition are going to stay in the opposition for another 500 years, at least," he said. Being in Havana may give Chávez the chance to meet Pope Benedict, who is visiting the communist-led Caribbean island on Monday after a three-day stop in Mexico. One Venezuelan journalist, who has been breaking news on Chávez' cancer saga in the absence of detailed official information, said the Pope had agreed to a request for a private meeting with Chávez. Capriles has sought to avoid entering into speculation over the president's health, but has been critical of Chávez for not being treated at home. "What message does that send to the ordinary Venezuelan?" he asked Reuters in a recent interview. Chávez prefers going to Cuba because he is guaranteed greater privacy on the tightly-controlled island. He also leans heavily on the counsel and support of his political mentor and friend Fidel Castro. (Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Todd Eastham and Eric Beech)
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Re: And again: Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment
Posted by Olog-hai* on Sun Apr 1 00:07:02 2012, in response to Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment, posted by Olog-hai on Sat Mar 24 22:28:32 2012.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d This is one extended-length dead pool . . . one of these trips will end up being one-way. Associated Press Mar 31, 10:36 PM EDT Venezuelan leader returns to Cuba for treatment By JORGE RUEDA Associated Press CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez traveled to Cuba on Saturday for another round of cancer treatment, saying he will be in Havana for several days and then return home. Chávez boarded the presidential jet on Saturday night accompanied by one of his daughters. His aides and military chiefs saw him off at the airport. He said during an earlier speech to supporters that he was traveling to Havana for a second round of radiation after recent surgery to extract a second cancerous tumor in his pelvic area. Chávez had another tumor removed from the same place in June. The 57-year-old leftist president, in office since 1999, has vowed to overcome cancer to win another six-year term in the Oct. 7 election. Chávez has not identified the type of cancer, nor the precise location where the tumors were located. He has said he is choosing to undergo treatment in Cuba because it's where his cancer was originally diagnosed and where his surgeries have been carried out. Chávez said that after his second round of five daily sessions of radiation, he expects to return to Caracas on Wednesday or Thursday. He has said he expects to be traveling to and from Cuba for the treatments in the next several weeks. Before departing for Havana, Chávez reiterated claims that he believes opposition leaders might not accept the results of the October election if he wins, and that "they're making plans to try to generate violence, to try to destabilize the country." He did not provide evidence to back those claims. Chávez has made similar accusations in the past, but this time he also warned bankers who sympathize with the opposition that if the government finds they have provided financial support to any such conspiracy, the government could nationalize their banks. "Since I know there are private bankers supporting the opposition — and with a lot of money — be careful, private bankers," Chávez said in a televised speech. "It's one thing for you to support a democratic movement... and it's something else for you to support destabilizing movements." Opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles dismissed Chávez's claims. "We're committed to accepting the will of the people," Capriles told reporters. "What those accusations are intended to do is instill fear in the people." Capriles, a 39-year-old state governor, won a February primary to become the opposition's presidential candidate. A poll released Thursday said Chávez has a lead over Capriles, with nearly 45 percent of those polled saying they would vote for the president, as compared to 31 percent for Capriles. About 25 percent said they didn't know or didn't answer in the survey by the Venezuelan polling firm Datanalisis. The poll had a margin of error of nearly 3 percentage points.
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Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . .
Posted by Olog-hai* on Fri Apr 6 02:03:57 2012, in response to Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment, posted by Olog-hai on Sat Mar 24 22:28:32 2012.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Guess he's either in or close to the final stages . . . or being very dramatic as usual. (Most likely both.) Reuters Reflective Chávez weeps at Mass in Venezuela By Daniel Wallis Fri Apr 6, 2012 12:18am EDT CARACAS (Reuters) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez wept and asked God to spare his life during a pre-Easter Mass on Thursday after returning from his latest session of cancer treatment in Cuba. Very little is known about the 57-year-old socialist leader's condition, including even what type of cancer he has. Chávez has undergone three operations in less than a year, and received two sessions of radiation treatment. He says the latest surgery was successful, that he is recovering well and will be fit to win a new six-year term at an election in October. Yet big questions remain about his future, and on Thursday the strain appeared to show. In a televised speech to the Catholic service in his home state of Barinas, Chávez cried and his voice broke as he eulogized Jesus, revolutionary fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara and South American independence hero Simon Bolivar. "Never forget that we are the children of giants ... I could not avoid some tears," the former soldier said, his parents and other relatives looking on from the church rows. "Give me your crown, Jesus. Give me your cross, your thorns so that I may bleed. But give me life, because I have more to do for this country and these people. Do not take me yet," Chávez added, standing below an image of Jesus with the Crucifix. Having dominated the continent's biggest oil exporter for the last 13 years, Chávez's sickness has thrown its politics into turmoil in the run-up to the election on October 7. Flying back and forth to Havana for the radiation therapy, Chávez has been forced to run a kind of "virtual" campaign via Twitter and appearances on state television, while his opposition rival Henrique Capriles tours the country. In his speech at the Mass, Chávez soon seemed to recover his composure, joking with his brother Adan in the congregation that few people were watching because it was the Easter holiday, when Venezuelans typically hit the country's beautiful beaches. "Life Has Been A Hurricane" Chávez said he had a lot of faith that his cancer would not return after his first two operations last year — which removed a baseball sized tumor from his pelvis — but it did. "Today, I have more faith than yesterday," he said. "Life has been a hurricane ... but a couple of years ago my life began to become not my own anymore," the president said. "Who said the path of revolution would be easy?" He returned to Barinas late on Wednesday from Havana, where he had undergone a second session of radiation therapy. He said it went well and that all the test results had been positive. But in the absence of detailed information on his condition, Venezuelans have hunted for clues in his appearance each time he is on state TV. One local news website ran a large photo of his heavily perspiring brow after he disembarked from the jet. One Venezuelan opposition journalist who has broken news on Chávez's condition in the past reported that his medical team continued to disagree among themselves over the best course, and a Brazilian blogger said he might travel there for treatment. Chávez's election rival, Capriles, has mostly kept quiet about the president's illness, preferring to wish him a speedy recovery so that he can beat him in a fair fight at the polls. But the youthful state government has criticized Chávez for choosing to be treated abroad, saying it sends a bad message to ordinary Venezuelans if he does not trust local doctors. Capriles, 39, took issue this week with repeated comments by Chávez and his allies that Jesus must have been a fellow leftist radical. "This theme is an obsession of the eternal candidate," Capriles said on Twitter, referring to Chávez. "This Holy Week, we should remember Christ was neither socialist nor capitalist." In the latest opinion poll released last month, the president had a solid 13-percentage point lead over his opponent, but many voters remained undecided. (Additional reporting by Mario Naranjo and Esteban Israel; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Doina Chiacu)
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Re: Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . .
Posted by Dan Lawrence* on Fri Apr 6 09:17:07 2012, in response to Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . ., posted by Olog-hai on Fri Apr 6 02:03:57 2012.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Does anybody really care?
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Re: Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . .
Posted by orange blossom special* on Fri Apr 6 18:06:22 2012, in response to Re: Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . ., posted by Dan Lawrence on Fri Apr 6 09:17:07 2012.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d I know a good amount of venezualens who'd 'show' you how much we do for saying that. I mean the hard way.
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Re: Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . .
Posted by orange blossom special* on Fri Apr 6 18:08:39 2012, in response to Chávez weeps at Mass and begs God to spare his life . . ., posted by Olog-hai on Fri Apr 6 02:03:57 2012.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d From Fox News: The Cuban health system: after allegedly suffering intestinal burns during his radiation treatment in Cuba. And how communism treats it's rock stars and royalty, although everyone is equal: Chávez refused treatment in Brazil due to the Brazilian hospital not being able to provide the level of security and privacy he wanted, including blocking off hospital doors and searching all hospital visitors while Chávez was interred. **** What is humorous is that in NYC, black 1% Beyonce and Jay Z got that exact security set up to have a baby! Maybe he should go there with some oil money.
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Chávez and his "agony"
Posted by Olog-hai* on Mon Apr 30 21:35:08 2012, in response to Re: And again: Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Apr 1 00:07:02 2012.* edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Miami Herald Posted on Monday, 04.30.12 Hugo Chávez’s agony BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER President Hugo Chávez’s Cuban doctors have already told him that he will most likely not be alive by October’s elections. It’s not a certainty but a statistical estimate. People his age who are affected by the aggressive cancer that afflicts him, complicated by the generalized metastasis that has spread, usually have only a few months to live. It is only a macabre average. One of Chávez’s first reactions was to phone a friendly chief of state to tell him about it. Hereafter, he will do increasingly stranger things. Like any other moribund person, he needs encouragement, compassion, loving pats on the back. An old friend of mine, a specialist in helping terminally ill patients die, a woman who practices her melancholy and necessary profession in a major hospital, insisted that people need, more than words of comfort, someone who will hold their hand when their time comes to leave this world. This final contact, skin to skin, is mysteriously comforting. It reduces the fear caused by looking into the unfathomable abyss. Precisely: Moribund persons experience different fears. They fear the speedy destruction of their body. They have lived being dependent on it. They have taken care of it, washed it, protected it, displayed it with pride, and suddenly deterioration, instead of being gradually perceptible, has forced itself upon them. People, especially powerful people, fear their loss of authority over the ego. The terminal patient is at the mercy of the doctors, the nurses, the relatives. The relationships of power invert cruelly and the terminal patient suffers the indignity of being bossed by anyone in a white lab coat or by the relative or friend who accompanies him. They are once again treated like children. Then there’s the fear of pain. It is terrible and has a grim consequence: The terminal patient subordinates all reality to the experience of pain, to the effort to avoid it. He becomes obsessed by pain. He talks and thinks about it constantly. The other topics cease to be important. Beset by a sharp pain, who thinks about love, responsibility or whatever? What is more absorbing than the fear of piercing pain? Chávez says that he has little time for the huge amount of business he’s leaving behind, but suddenly his priorities have changed. Does he much care about the fate of his Bolivarian revolution at this stage in his life or death? Maybe not. He knows he’s surrounded by bandits who are embezzling the public funds and by narco-generals who have laid the foundations for a narco-state. With those people, he can’t face posterity. They’re ballast. Does he care today, on the threshold of death, about that crazy 20th-century socialism project that he never quite defined, or that he defined in so many ways that nobody has the slightest idea of what he’s talking about? Who is going to defeat Yankee imperialism and bury capitalism? The limited Nicolás Maduro? Old crook José Vicente Rangel? Does anybody think that Diosdado Cabello is an idealistic revolutionary dedicated to the redemption of the species? Can Chávez leave to an executor a post-mortem request to continue dispensing revolutionary philanthropy to Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and other beggar states? Chávez is more prodigal than anyone with the money of Venezuelans. He bought his international weight with bolivars. He hands them out to foreign candidates, friends, adventurers who stop in Caracas and tell him stories. Who is going to replicate that generous behavior? Who is going to cultivate his glory after his death? What, in sum, is the Bolivarian revolution? Chávez knows: It’s a new political oligarchy that plunders the country with impunity. Nothing more. If Chávez reminds us of Bolivar, it’s because both plowed the seas. Everything has been for naught. His revolutionary experiment will not be studied in political science courses but in the criminology lab. He’ll die with that regret. That’s sad.
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Re: And again: Chávez back in Cuba for bizarre cancer treatment
Posted by Olog-hai* on Tue Nov 27 22:02:08 2012, in response to Re: And again: Chávez back in Cuba, this time for radiation treatment, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Apr 1 00:07:02 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Associated Press Hugo Chávez heading to Cuba for more treatment By FABIOLA SANCHEZ Nov. 27 2012 8:47 PM EST CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced plans to travel to Cuba as early as Tuesday for more medical treatment after spending much of the past 18 months fighting cancer. In a written request to the legislature, Chávez said doctors have recommended he "begin special treatment consisting of various sessions of hyperbaric oxygenation" and physical therapy to continue "consolidating the process of strengthening health." The request did not provide more details about the treatment or Chávez's condition and was promptly approved by allied lawmakers at a special session in the city of Maracay. National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello read the request on television. It said Chávez would travel to Cuba as soon as Tuesday. It did not say how long he will stay, though it said he would be back by Jan. 10, when he is being sworn in for a fourth term. Venezuelan law requires presidents to receive legislative approval before leaving the country for extended periods. The treatment that Chávez is to undergo generally involves breathing pure oxygen while in a pressurized, sealed chamber. Its value is well-established for treating burns, carbon monoxide poisoning and some other medical conditions, and to aid wound healing and help repair bone and tissue damaged by radiation treatments. However, the American Cancer Society says there is no evidence the treatment can cure cancer. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is employed by doctors in Cuba for the rehabilitation of patients with chronic illnesses, said Jesús Pena, a Venezuelan internist with a private practice in Caracas. But Pena said the announcement after a period of silence about Chávez's condition raises suspicions about the reasons behind the treatment. The 58-year-old president first underwent cancer treatment in Cuba in June 2011 and suffered a relapse in February. He has since said he's recovered from the pelvic cancer and won re-election in October. Throughout his previous chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Chávez kept many details of his illness secret, including the type of cancer and the precise location of the tumors. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina expressed concern about what he said seems to be a "veiled or deliberate attempt to continue creating uncertainty." Marquina told The Associated Press in a phone interview that if Chávez is traveling to Cuba for normal medical treatment as his request says, "the correct thing to do would be for a much more precise medical report to be given, and to not continue on with this sort of permanent uncertainty." Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in the United States, said several of his patients have received hyperbaric oxygen treatment, usually to promote the healing of wounds or damage to nerves and muscles that can be caused by radiation therapy. Pishvaian said such cases are unusual. "These are definitely cases that the patients are really suffering from the side effects ... of the radiation therapy, and we don't know how to help them and hyperbaric oxygen is kind of something we reach for as a last resort," Pishvaian said. He said that while it's unclear why Chávez is having the treatment, "it may be promoting wound healing if there's something about the surgical site or his prior radiation sites that aren't healing well." Chávez last appeared publicly during a televised meeting on Nov. 15, prompting some critics to publicly wonder where he went after his election win. Chávez was absent on Tuesday from a military air show in Maracay where some Venezuelans had speculated he could reappear. Before the announcement of Chávez's plans to return to Cuba, opposition newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff published an editorial in the daily Tal Cual on Tuesday criticizing the president's long absence from the public eye. Under the headline "The invisible man," Petkoff said: "The health of those who govern can't be a secret."
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Re: And yet again: Chávez back in Cuba for bizarre cancer treatment
Posted by Olog-hai* on Sat Dec 8 22:43:57 2012, in response to Re: And again: Chávez back in Cuba for bizarre cancer treatment, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Nov 27 22:02:08 2012.* fiogf49gjkf0d Reuters Venezuela's Chávez to have another cancer operation Sat Dec 8, 2012 9:40pm EST CARACAS (Reuters) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on Saturday he would undergo another cancer operation in coming days after doctors found malignant cells during tests in Cuba. "It is necessary for me to have a new intervention in the coming days," Chávez said in a televised broadcast, adding he would return to Havana on Sunday. The socialist leader had flown back to Venezuela on Friday after the tests in Cuba. The 58-year-old president has already had three cancer operations in Cuba since the middle of last year. News of more surgery will likely raise new doubts about his political future and the fate of his self-styled "revolution" in the OPEC nation. In his comments on Saturday, Chávez sat alongside members of his Cabinet, including Vice President Nicolás Maduro and Congress head Diosdado Cabello, two close and powerful allies who might look to replace him if Chávez were to leave office. (Reporting by Daniel Wallis and Marianna Parraga; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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