Jimmy Carter’s melanoma, a form of skin cancer, has been discovered in four places on his brain and is likely to “show up other places in my body”, the former US president said on Thursday.
Carter told a news conference he would be undergoing radiation treatments and injections to fight the cancer, which was discovered after he underwent surgery to remove a growth on his liver, where melanoma also had been discovered, he said.
Carter first announced the cancer diagnosis last week.
“I thought it was confined to my liver, and the operation had already removed it,” Carter, the 39th president, in an appearance at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I feel good. I haven’t felt any weakness or disability.”
In a matter-of-fact appearance, Carter said he had “complete confidence” in his doctors at Emory University and that “I’m going to cut back fairly dramatically on my obligations.”
“I can’t really anticipate how I’ll be feeling obviously,” Carter said. “But I’ll have to defer quite substantially to my doctors in charge of my treatment.
Carter said he had received the news of the spreading cancer “at ease.”
“I was surprisingly at ease,” he said. “I’ve had a wonderful life ... I’ve had an exciting, gratifying existence. I felt surprisingly at ease, much more than my wife was.
“But now I feel it’s in the hands of god, and I’ll be prepared for what comes. I’m looking forward to a new adventure.”
Every member of Carter’s immediate family from childhood – two sisters, a brother and both parents – died from cancer. All were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Carter had been undergoing regular checkups for the disease.
After his one term in the White House ended in 1981, Carter went on to the longest, and one of the most distinguished, post-presidential careers in history. Under the aegis of the Carter Center, he has traveled the work as a peace broker and public health and human rights advocate. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2002.
