World

Hugo Chavez Heads Back to Cuba for More Radiation Therapy Cancer Treatment

Hugo Chavez Heads Back to Cuba for More Radiation Therapy Cancer Treatment

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, right, speaks with Cuba's President Raul Castro upon arrival to Havana, Cuba, late Saturday March 24, 2012. Chavez has arrived in Cuba to begin radiation therapy in his latest round of cancer treatment. (AP Photo/Miraflores Press Office, Marcelo Garcia)

HAVANA (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in Cuba on Sunday to begin radiation therapy treatment one month after undergoing surgery that removed a cancerous tumor.

(Related: Days After Cancer Surgery Hugo Chavez Says He‘s Recovering ’Like a Soaring Condor’)

Chavez was met by Cuban President Raul Castro as he arrived at Havana’s airport on Saturday night. Venezuelan television showed Chavez saluting as he stepped off the plane holding hands with one of his daughters, and then embracing Castro.

Chavez said before leaving Venezuela that he would start the treatments on Sunday. He has been recovering from a Feb. 26 surgery in Havana that he said removed a tumor from the same spot in his pelvic region where another tumor was extracted eight months earlier.

In Venezuela, some of Chavez’s aides led his supporters in a prayer for his health Sunday morning outside the cathedral in the southwestern city of San Cristobal, and then the crowd began a pilgrimage on foot to another church.

Chavez will be in Cuba at the same time as Pope Benedict XVI, who arrives on the island on Monday after a visit to Mexico. But in his remarks on Saturday, Chavez didn‘t refer to the pope’s upcoming visit to Havana.

After he was diagnosed with cancer in Cuba last year, Chavez underwent an initial surgery in June that removed a tumor that he said was the size of a baseball. He then had four rounds of chemotherapy and said tests showed no signs of any cancerous cells. But last month, he announced he was returning to Cuba for surgery to remove a lesion that proved to be malignant. He has described the most recent tumor as measuring about 2 centimeters (0.8 inches).

Chavez has not identified the type of cancer nor the precise location where the tumors have been removed.

The president has said the radiation treatments will last for four to five weeks and are intended to “attack any new threat.” He said on Saturday that he expects to be traveling between Venezuela and Cuba during the treatments.

He said he preferred to return to Cuba for radiation therapy because that is where his cancer was first detected last year and where he has undergone surgeries since.

Chavez said he is thankful to his close allies and friends Fidel and Raul Castro for the medical care he has received. He praised Cuba’s health care system as “one of the most advanced in this world, thanks to the Cuban revolution.”

Chavez is running for re-election in October and vows that his illness will not get in the way of that political goal.

Last year, Chavez shaved his head during chemotherapy after his hair began falling out as a result of the treatments.

Now, as he starts radiation therapy, some of the potential side effects of the treatments include fatigue, abdominal cramping, nausea and vomiting, said Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University‘s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center who is not involved in Chavez’s treatment.

The radiation is often administered for a short period each day, with breaks on weekends, Pishvaian said. “I would imagine that he probably could go about his daily activities even being a president.”

Following radiation therapy, patients typically need two weeks to a month to recover from the effects of the treatment, Pishvaian said. “Then he should actually be pretty much back to normal, but will be on sort of high alert for watching to see if the cancer comes back again.”

Comments (63)

1 2
  • Rayblue
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 5:58pm

    Can they transplant heads on other peoples bodies yet ?
    I bet he‘d kill for a sulfher smellin’ ol’ George Bush about now.

    Report Post » Rayblue  
  • tiredofprogressives
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:50pm

    Hey Sean Penn…go see your comrade buddy before he kicks the bucket. While your in Cuba how about staying there and make a movie of the people who are still in prison for political reasons. While your at it Michael Moore said Cuba has the best medical facilities in the world so have a Liver Transplant you drunk.

    Report Post » tiredofprogressives  
    • lukerw
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 6:56pm

      Maybe… Moore & Penn can do a Laurel & Hardy remake… set in a Commie Paradise…

      Report Post » lukerw  
  • Wyatt's Torch
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:46pm

    All he has to do is rub up against one of those soviet cold-war era nukes…they outta be leaking off enough rads to cure or kill ‘im by now.

    Report Post » Wyatt's Torch  
  • Gonzo
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:18pm

    Dead communist walking!

    Report Post » Gonzo  
  • spfoam1
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:10pm

    Just give Malignant 1 a dose of polonium 210 for his radiation therapy. His (and Venezuelas) problem will be over.

    Report Post »  
  • Rodney777
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:05pm

    One thing to say! You will be gone soon! See ya stupid!

    Report Post » Rodney777  
  • lukerw
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:00pm

    Can’t go to… Chernobyl… like the other Commies?

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • c.foster4722
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 3:15pm

    I can hardly wait to read all the wonderful things that yor friends like the traitor Obama and Iran,China,Russia and etc. have to say about you, when they put your worthless but in the ground! Oops my mistake that would comtaminate the soil, oh well I guess they’ll have to let you rot in the sun! Ah sorry can’t do that,it would polute the air! Oh well i’m sure they will find some way to dispose of you!!

    Report Post »  
  • c.foster4722
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:58pm

    Way to go Hugo! You you’ve just garenteed your demize! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! Maybe you should have went to China,or Iran, oh well to late now!!!

    Report Post »  
    • Ari Ben TZion
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 3:06pm

      One of the few places in the world where this ignorant indio can be president is in Venezuela.

      How incredibly pathetic.

      Report Post » Ari Ben TZion  
  • david3755
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:55pm

    I can’t believe the first treatment with burning chicken feathers, two rattles made from river stones and a shrunken monkey head on a stick pouring out smoke at the super advanced Cuban medical facility did not work. Who could have seen that coming?

    Report Post »  
  • fabercastell
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:53pm

    We buy oil from Canada and Venezuela. Both socialist countries that provide socialized healthcare and medicine. Canada pretends to like us while saying things behind our backs, mainly the Canadian people themselves. While in Venezuela, they also elect a President who just says stuff without fear right in the open, and not behind our backs. He just says stuff in our face that every leader in every country says behind our backs!! What is the difference then? lets analyze. Venezuela and Canada has beauty pageants. They don’t hide their women behind veils or not let them drive like the Saudi King. They also have extravagant beauty pageants and intelligence answers in Venezuelan contests..the national one lasting over 3 hours long and costing millions. So you get beauty, brains, and a number of different jobs they can do in the workforce. While the King in Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow some of this. So you buy from the country that doesn’t bring oil from the middle east or try not too. I know, it is like a choice between buying a product from China or Vietnam. would you rather buy from vietnam..a country where we lost 10s of thousands of american soldiers and trauma and injuries up to this day? or buy a hat and shirt made in China, where we have a large chinese community bridging ties between our two nations and closer economic interests..like plastic toys for kids. I’m just bringing all this up so you may think of your choices..although not the best choices.

    Report Post »  
    • canadianproud
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 5:20pm

      You blow hot air. Canadian people are not responsible for your voting habits. It seems to me, we are better off than you. How many of you will run to Canada, when you elect marxist pig?

      Report Post »  
  • oriondma05
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:42pm

    I am guessing there are no doctors or medical facilities in an entire socialist country? What volumes does that speak for our country?

    I trained two engineers from Venezuela for a summer, they said there are entire villages with a 13-1 girl to guy ratio. I thinks I need to visit there for a while.

    Report Post » oriondma05  
    • canadianproud
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 5:24pm

      There is more in Canada than just ice and indians,. Educate yourself.

      Report Post »  
  • IMCHRISTIAN
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 1:58pm

    Did he acknowledge God before cancer or after? Really doesn’t matter God is always there for anyone that calls upon him but I just wondered.

    Report Post »  
  • sillyfreshness
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 1:53pm

    Hugo Chavez is pretty much guaranteed a 100% full recovery since he’s being treated in Cuba. According to that Bolshevik Michael Moore, Cuba has the best health care system in the entire world. Second place went to North Korea and rounding out 3rd was China. Chavez better be planning for vacations 10 years from now, because he will be alive and better than ever.

    Report Post » sillyfreshness  
    • VII
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:03pm

      Turn to our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father God in all that you do! For it is written,
      “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
      Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
      Search yourself, your thoughts, your words, and your acts for the works of the flesh; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

      Report Post »  
    • VII
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:04pm

      Again I tell you it is written,
      in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.
      You must put away pride to find such things in yourself! Nothing anyone else does will be accepted as a reason for such things in yourself.
      My brothers and sisters in Christ turn to your Lord with every free moment you have! Seek Him, praise Him, worship Him, drop to your knees and pray to him from the heart!

      Report Post »  
    • VII
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:04pm

      Again it is written,
      “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
      All who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ turn to him! Do not be divided! Christian, Catholic, Mormon, even Muslim you all believe Jesus then turn to him, and learn from him! Do not allow this world to divide you!

      Report Post »  
    • db321
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:12pm

      Hugo – its must be difficult to play God and still live within the Law of God for mankind- it is appointed unto man once to Die and then the Judgement. Hugo, is it the dying that scares you or the Judgement that will follow.

      I think Judgement right now is on the minds of Saddam, Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Qaddafi, Chairman Mao, and yes the Messiah to the Muslims Mohammed – all by the way are still in their graves.

      And as the years go by other will fear the day of judgement – like Soros, Holder, and Obama – and all that voted for him and supported him – including the media.

      Report Post » db321  
    • pavepaws
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 2:33pm

      Maybe his final trip from Venezuela.

      Report Post »  
  • whatthecrazy
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 1:33pm

    Do ya think its to early to plan a PARTY?……..WHAT, too soon?

    Report Post »  
  • Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:40pm

    Soon enough he will be facing the great throne of Judgement; I hope he is ready.

    Report Post » Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}  
    • Jenny Lind
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 4:22pm

      Having lost a spouse to cancer, I always felt I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but I find a certain satisfaction in knowing he is still going throught this. The lesson I learned so painfully is that God is in charge, not us. Still in my heart I hope he meets his maker sooner than later. He has been in league with evil.

      Report Post »  
    • calijohn
      Posted on March 26, 2012 at 1:50am

      exactly what is it that chavez has done to you?
      pissed off bush.
      kept selling the usa oil?
      kept buying usa gasoline?
      didn’t kill american troops in iraq/afghanisatn?
      oh, my goodness!
      he’s a commie and has been elected by his people!
      get a life, blazers.
      all you commie-baiting geeks are just more old mold.

      Report Post »  
  • chips1
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:30pm

    Is he riding a black horse? “And upon him rode DEATH”. He is dead meat.

    Report Post »  
  • georgepatton
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:30pm

    Hugo,
    CAN’T EXPIRE FAST ENOUGH FOR ME!

    Report Post »  
  • briankraner
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:28pm

    Obama must be really sad…..

    Report Post »  
    • CatB
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 1:40pm

      Obama can use his Venezuelan birth certificate and take over after January 2013 for Chavez. ;-)

      Report Post »  
  • Stoic one
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:21pm

    I wonder how chavezcare is working for the rest of Venezuela? Coming soon to the USA renamed obamacare.

    Report Post » Stoic one  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:32pm

      Well we will either have Obamacare or Romneycare. Besides why not? People had no problem with people who dwelt in the temple getting forced to pay for some schmuck‘s house when it got burned down because they didn’t want controlled burns, and fires burn out of control. Or when some schmuck built in a hurricane prone area, and when the house was blown away, people who dwelt in the temple had to pay for it. And on and on.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:33pm

      It’s the Laws that will get you schmuck.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:36pm

      You just don’t realize that your fallout shelter that was 8 miles high has collapsed.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:38pm

      It’s one thing to steal from men, but it’s completely different when you steal from God and the people who sacrifice in the temple.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:53pm

      And they will say: I sacrifice in the temple. Do you now? So, then you don’t encourage your children to watch football by watching football, even though you would really like to watch football. So then instead of coddling your children which is what you would really like to do, instead you sacrifice in the temple, and you let a little liberty teach them a lesson. And instead of sacrificing animals, instead you observe the things people do who have two ideas of life, and you toss it up on the alter of your mind to burn off the fat, and the kidneys so you can decipher the portion of their ideas which is worth keeping for food for your own thought. Oh, I think people don’t even know what the temple of the lord is.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:57pm

      People don‘t want to know what the temple and alter is because it’s more convenient to be a wicked sloth.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
    • Itsjusttim
      Posted on March 25, 2012 at 1:14pm

      And then people write books about deferred gratification like it’s some kind of new concept, when that concept has been around in the Bible for over 5000 years. It’s called: sacrificing in the Temple of God.

      Report Post » Itsjusttim  
  • RJJinGadsden
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:18pm

    I wish nobody ill will, but I find it funny that he says that he is recovering like a soaring condor, a vulture.

    Report Post » RJJinGadsden  
  • progressiveslayer
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:17pm

    That’s the spirit Hugo you socialist pig,Cuba with their state of the art socialized medicine will save you,Lol. The medical treatment you so called ‘elites’ get in Cuba is better than what the slaves in Cuba get but it still won’t keep you from dying and going to hell.

    Report Post » progressiveslayer  
  • Mark0331
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:14pm

    Dead dictator walking.

    Report Post » Mark0331  
  • JOEYBLUEYES
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:11pm

    well his 1 st visit went bad, hopefully THE 2ND WILL BE THE SAME RESULTS

    Report Post »  
  • Teufel Hunden
    Posted on March 25, 2012 at 12:04pm

    Maybe Iran can radiate him. I think they have a better shot of it than Cuba.

    Report Post » Teufel Hunden  
1 2

Sign In To Post Comments! Sign In

Sign Up For Our Newsletter!

Glenn Beck Radio

Listen to Glenn Beck 24/7 Listen Now
Restoring Love