Fears for ailing Hillary Clinton

Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton revealed yesterday that she had a life-threatening blood clot near her brain.

The disturbing news came as a clearly anguished Chelsea Clinton visited her mom’s bedside along with her dad, former President Bill Clinton, whose concern was etched on his face as he left New York Presbyterian Hospital.

“In the course of a routine follow-up MRI on Sunday, the scan revealed that a . . . clot [formed] in the vein that is situated in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear,” Clinton’s medical team, Dr. Lisa Bardack, of Mount Kisco, and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi, of George Washington University, said in a written statement.

 

“It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage. To help dissolve this clot, her medical team began treating the secretary with blood thinners,” the doctors said, noting that she is in “good spirits” and expected to make “a full recovery.”

Top oncologist Dr. Marc Straus told The Post, “Anytime you get a clot near your brain, it’s dangerous.”

The peril lies in the risk of a stroke that could impair the neurological functions of the globe-trotting top diplomat, who is stepping down from office amid speculation that she will run for president in 2016.

The polling firm Gallup yesterday announced that Clinton — for the 11th year in a row, and 17th time overall — had been named the most admired woman in America. She has visited 112 countries as secretary of state, a record for that office.

A clot “can be mild or severe and lead to problems such as stroke if the obstruction to the sinus is large and extensive,” said Dr. Douglas Galasko, neurologist and professor of neuroscience at the University of California in San Diego.

Clinton, 65, suffered a concussion early last month when she fell in her Washington, DC, home after becoming dehydrated from a stomach virus, her staff has said.

The concussion led to her missing scheduled testimony before Congress about the fatal terror attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.

The doctors, who attribute the clot to her fall, said Clinton “will be released once the medication dose has been established.”

“In all other aspects of her recovery, the secretary is making excellent progress and we are confident she will make a full recovery. She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family and her staff,” they said.

Straus, the oncologist, said that “a ‘routine’ MRI is not routine unless there is some kind of symptom” Clinton was suffering from.

“It’s a little bit odd that there would be a routine MRI unless she had symptoms,” he said. “I suspect something led them to do the tests that we don’t know about.”






NY POST