Source: PEDRO PARDO / Getty
(RNN) – The family of Sen. John McCain said Friday that he would not be continuing with his cancer treatment.
His daughter, Meghan McCain, released a statement on Twitter.
“In the year since (his diagnosis), John has surpassed expectations for his survival,” the family said. “But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict.”
They said he chose to stop the treatments “with his usual strength of will.”
They thanked the caregivers who had supported him and showed kindness, as well as the people who had expressed their support and kept him in their prayers.
“My family is deeply appreciative of all the love and generosity you have shown us during this past year,” Meghan McCain said.
The longtime Arizona politician and 2008 Republican presidential nominee was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center in December after experiencing side effects from his cancer therapy. He had surgery in July 2017 for a blood clot and was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same brain cancer that claimed the life of former senator Ted Kennedy.
McCain said in September that his doctors told him it was a “very poor prognosis.”
“I just said, ‘I understand,'” he said during an interview on “60 Minutes.” “Now we’re going to do what we can, get the best doctors we can find, and do the best we can and at the same time, celebrate with gratitude a life well-lived.”
In April, McCain underwent surgery for an infection related to diverticulitis, an intestinal condition. His wife Cindy McCain and daughter Meghan McCain both tweeted that he was in stable condition after the surgery, and was recovering.
The same month, Apple News published an excerpt of McCain’s upcoming memoir, “The Restless Wave,” in which McCain lamented the current political climate of hyperpartisanship and emphasized the importance of compromise in governance. He also wrote that he was serving out his last term in the Senate.
“This is my last term. If I hadn’t admitted that to myself before this summer, a stage 4 cancer diagnosis acts as ungentle persuasion,” McCain wrote.
McCain had in recent weeks held conference calls with his staff from his Arizona home, where old friends and colleagues, including former Vice President Joe Biden, visited to check up on McCain and provide support.
In December, Biden consoled Meghan McCain as she tearfully spoke of her father’s illness on ABC’s “The View.” Biden’s son Beau died in 2015 after fighting glioblastoma. Biden held Meghan McCain’s hand, telling her not to lose hope because medical breakthroughs are possible and that if anyone could beat brain cancer, it would be her father.
McCain, considered a Maverick by some, lashed out at President Donald Trump in March of 2018, after the president congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election.
In 2014, McCain issued repeated warnings about a resurgent Russia under President Vladimir Putin after the Russian takeover of Crimea. As a leader of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, he led a group of senators that saw Putin’s Russia as America’s greatest threat on the world stage.
A Vietnam POW and a known defense hawk, McCain lost his bid for the White House to Barack Obama. McCain was the first GOP nominee to select a woman to be a vice-presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The ticket failed to gain lasting traction in the face of an inspiring Obama campaign, especially following a financial crash in the fall of 2008 while George W. Bush was president.
READ MORE: Cleveland19.com
Article Courtesy of WOIO Cleveland 19 News
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First and Second Tweet and Third and Fourth Picture Courtesy of Twitter and WOIO Cleveland 19 News
