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Bill Clinton returns home after surgery
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-11 14:03 Former President Bill Clinton left the hospital
and returned home Friday, four days after undergoing heart bypass surgery, his
office said.
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Former U.S.
President Bill Clinton was released from a New York hospital on September
10, 2004 after undergoing quadruple heart bypass surgery earlier in the
week, his office said. Clinton is seen in this July 12 file photo.
[Reuters]
| Clinton arrived early Friday
evening at his home in the New York suburb of Chappaqua, according to his
spokesman, Jim Kennedy.
"The President is in good spirits and has taken short walks in the hospital
hallway and in his home today," Kennedy said in a prepared statement.
The 58-year-old Democrat was taken off his respirator and placed in an
intensive care unit on Monday. On Wednesday, he was moved back to his hospital
room, where he walked with assistance, sat in his bed and sat up in his chair.
Clinton had planned to campaign for John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for
president, but the recovery from surgery will take him off the stump for now,
with just eight weeks left until the election. It was not immediately clear how
soon he could return to the campaign trail.
In recent days, Clinton has been inundated with thousands of well-wishes and
flowers, his foundation has said.
"We appreciate more than words can say all the good wishes and messages of
concern that we received during this difficult time in our lives," Clinton, his
wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea said Friday in a
statement relayed through the family's spokesman.
"We feel blessed to have such support, and it will continue to sustain us
throughout the months of recuperation that remain ahead," they said.
The family also thanked doctors and nurses at New York Presbyterian
Hospital/Columbia, where the former president underwent surgery Monday.
Neighbors welcomed Clinton back to his home about 40 miles north of
Manhattan. "I'm glad he came through," said Osman Osmani, who lives on the same
quiet, tree-lined cul de sac as the Clintons. "We give him our best. Good to
have him back."
Clinton went to the hospital late last week after complaining of prolonged
chest pain and shortness of breath, but doctors revealed Monday that he'd had
these symptoms for several months. They said he had blamed them on lapses in his
exercise routine and acid reflux.
Doctors performed the four-hour quadruple bypass operation and found that
Clinton's heart disease was extensive, with blockages in some arteries well over
90 percent.
In bypass surgery, doctors remove one or more blood vessels from elsewhere in
the body — in Clinton's case, two arteries from the chest and a vein from the
leg — and attach them to arteries serving the heart, detouring around
blockages.
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