Ruth Bader Ginsburg Updates Public on Her Cancer Diagnosis

The lesions are the fifth time Ginsburg has dealt with cancer since 1999, when she first underwent surgery for colorectal cancer.

Surgeries for tumors on her pancreas and lung took place in 2009 and 2018, respectively, and Ginsburg underwent radiation therapy for a new growth on her pancreas last year.

By Supreme Court standards, Ginsburg was downright speedy in her most recent public announcement.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018, said nothing publicly when he had a stent inserted to restore blood flow in an artery after experiencing mild chest pain in 2005.

The court revealed the procedure 10 months later, when Kennedy returned to the hospital to have the stent replaced.

In July 2007, Roberts suffered a seizure while on vacation in Maine.

The court issued an initial statement little more than an hour after the incident, saying only that Roberts had fallen and was taken to a hospital.

Several hours later, the court confirmed that he had suffered a seizure, but has never provided details of what tests Roberts underwent or whether he was prescribed medication.

He had a similar episode in 1993, long before he was a justice. The court said doctors had ruled out a seizure in the June fall.

Only after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016 did the public learn that he had coronary artery disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, and several other ailments that probably contributed to the heart attack that killed him, according to his doctor.

“The lack of health information about individual justices is a glaring problem. Declining, even incapacitated, justices hold their offices until they die. And because justices play politics with their departure decisions, trying to retire under a politically favorable president and Senate if possible, the court’s history has been filled with declining justices who compromised the court’s work because they refused to depart for political or personal reasons,” Ward said.

Like other Americans, Supreme Court justices live and work with a range of ailments. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has had diabetes since childhood. Also, both she and Justice Stephen Breyer injured their shoulders so badly they needed replacement surgery. Sotomayor had a fall at home and Breyer suffered a bicycle accident. Both made prompt announcements of those incidents.

Her frail appearance may fool people, but Ginsburg has been remarkably resilient through her many health crises, which also have included broken ribs, infections, and her own artery-clearing stent.

She had no surgery to remove the latest cancerous growth, and her treatment is ongoing. She has said she will receive doses of the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine every two weeks.

Ginsburg's statement came 10 days after she said another medical scan “indicated significant reduction of the liver lesions and no new disease.”

In that same period, the court also issued the last of its opinions and Ginsburg was in and out of the hospital for treatment of an infection that she said was unrelated to the cancer.

She maintained that she kept up with opinion writing and all other court work throughout her treatment and hospital stays.

(Writer: Mark Sherman)

Source: https://apnews.com/c735be81f7f8a475882aeb8ab326f70f