Hillary Clinton battled a sinus condition so bad that she had surgery and a follow-up brain scan – but never told voters – her doctor revealed for the first time on Wednesday evening. The Democratic candidate’s health records were partially released after days of prevarication by her campaign and her collapse at New York’s 9/11 memorial on Sunday.
But instead of ending speculation over her physical well-being, they contained a bombshell revelation that she had kept secret a condition so serious it led to surgery.
They revealed that in January she was suffering sinusitis and an ear infection for which she was given antibiotics and steroids.
The condition was diagnosed in the run up to the Iowa caucuses, the first electoral test for the candidate – but voters in the state were told nothing of what was wrong with her.
The condition is detailed in the letter from her physician, Dr Lisa Bardack, which then says that she continued to suffer ear pain.
Her ENT doctor, who has not been named, then examined her and she had a myringotomy tube placed in her ear to drain fluid. It appeared to alleviate her condition.
The letter does not spell out that this was a surgical procedure. It was followed in March by a brain scan, Dr Bardack discloses.
‘This scan showed no abnormalities of the brain and mild chronic sinusitis,’ Dr Bardack wrote.
‘The symptoms resolved and she continued symptom-free for the next six months.’
The disclosure came five days after she was diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia – a full diagnosis which was only revealed on Wednesday, as well.
It came in a letter Wednesday evening that was posted to Clinton’s campaign website, written on official letterhead for Dr Lisa Bardack, he personal physician.
It detailed that she first came to see Dr Bardack on Friday, September 2 – a week before the campaign had previously acknowledged.
At that time she was diagnosed with a ‘low-grade fever, congestion and fatigue’ and told to see her doctor when she returned from a campaign trip.
But a week later, she returned to Dr Bardack. A chest CT scan revealed signs of pneumonia,and she was given a 10-day course of antibiotics to treat the condition, that her daughter Chelsea says she didn’t know about either until Sunday.
‘The remainder of her complete physical exam was normal and she is in excellent mental condition,’ Bardack’s letter stated.
Clinton stayed off the campaign trail the two days following her initial visit with Bardack. She made her maiden voyage on her campaign plane on Monday to Ohio despite .
At the Labor Day event she suffered a prolonged coughing fit that she chalked up to an allergic reaction to her opponent. She told reporters the next day that she upped her antihistimines in response and would be better by the middle of the week.
That was not the case, however, and Clinton made a second, secret visit to her doctor on Friday morning before a meeting with her national security advisers.
Bardack informed the presidential candidate she had pneumonia and needed to amend her campaign schedule. Clinton refused, and on Sunday she morning overheated after she was leaving a 9/11 event in New York City.
The letter from Bardack states: ‘On Friday, September 2nd, I evaluated Mrs. Clinton for a 24-hour history of a low grade fever, congestion and fatigue.
‘On examination she was noted to have a temperature of 99.4; her vital signs were otherwise normal as was her physical exam.
‘She was advised to rest, put on a short course of antibiotics, and continued on her allergy medications for an upper respiratory tract infection in the setting of her seasonal allergies.
‘Over the next several days as she traveled, her congestion worsened and she developed a cough. She was advised to see me when she returned from her travels for further testing.’
Bardack writes that on Friday, Sept. 9, Clinton returned to her office.
‘A non-contrast chest CT scan, including a CTA calcium score, was performed,’ she says.
The letter is framed as an ‘update’ to the one she wrote when Clinton entered the race in April of 2015.
Additional health records released with the letter show that Clinton’s cholesterol and blood pressure are within normal ranges.
She has had ‘allergy flares’ but those are ‘typical’ and have occurred throughout her lifetime.
Her immunizations are up-to-date, Bardack says, and she had a ‘normal mammogram and breast ultrasound’ this month.
The letter also notes that in January, during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, Clinton received treatment for a sinus and ear infection that included placing a drainage tube in her left ear.
A CT scan of her brain and sinuses showed no abnormalities and mild chronic sinus inflammation.
‘Mrs. Clinton had significant improvement in her symptoms,’ the letter states. ‘Further follow-up evaluation with a CT scan of her brain and sinuses was done in March of 2016. This scan showed no abnormalities of the brain and mild chronic sinusitis.
‘Her symptom’s revolved and she continued symptom-free for the next six months.’
Clinton narrowly won the Iowa caucuses by less than one percent. She lost the next round, New Hampshire, to Bernie Sanders. Her performance in Nevada in February was lackluster, as well, though she did beat her opponent in the end.
It’s unclear when Clinton had her out-patient surgery in March, the most important month of primary voting. More than half of 50 states cast their ballots in March alone.
That month Bernie Sanders began to surge, picking up unexpected wins against Clinton, who entered the race as the favorite. She didn’t clinch the nomination until more than two months later as Californians took to the polls on the second to last day of voting.
Through the race Clinton has battled the perception that she’s not been fully honest with the American people.
The disclosure of another secret medical treatment will only fuel questions in Democratic circles about the impact on Clinton’s poll ratings for candor.
She had dismissed claims she had been unwell as conspiracy theories – but never told anyone she had been treated in January for an ear infection which involved the intervention with a drainage tube.
Clinton is largely viewed as untrustworthy by the voting public. She kept a private server in her home for four years as secretary of state that she housed her work-related emails against government guidance.
Her conduct was the subject of an FBI investigation that concluded this summer without criminal charges but had the bureau’s director scolding her as ‘extremely careless’ with classified information.
It took the ex-cabinet official six months to apologize for the server that her boss, President Barack Obama, didn’t know about.
A former adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, blasted Clinton’ this week for an ‘unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems.’
Clinton’s communications director admitted in response that the campaign ‘could have done better’ on Sunday while defending the Democratic candidate as more transparent that competitor Donald Trump.
Clinton’s updated health history stated that she takes thyroid and allergy medicines and the blood thinner Coumadin, prescribed as a preventative after she suffered a blood clot resulting from a 2012 concussion.
The blood clot, which was in a vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear, led Clinton to spend a few days in New York-Presbyterian Hospital and take a month-long absence from the State Department for treatment.
Clinton has spent the past three days out of the public eye, recuperating at her suburban New York home. She’ll return to the campaign trail Thursday, with a rally in North Carolina and a speech before a Hispanic group in Washington.
‘I just talked to her — she’s feeling great and I think she’ll be back out there tomorrow,’ former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday, when he stepped in for his wife at a previous scheduled campaign event in Las Vegas.
And despite the massive pressure on her campaign to tell one true version of events, he described her illness as the ‘flu’.
‘It’s a crazy time we live in, you know, when people think there’s something unusual about getting the flu.’
After becoming dizzy on Sunday, Hillary Clinton retreated to daughter Chelsea’s home, ditching her press corps for 90 minutes as Fox News reported that she had a ‘medical episode.’
Coming out of Chelsea’s apartment Clinton said she was fine, and returned to her home in Chappaqua.
The former first daughter said in an interview Wednesday with a North Carolina TV station that she had not seen the video of her mom getting woozy and struggling to stand – and that she didn’t know about the pneumonia diagnosis until her mother arrived at her home.
‘I just was so grateful that I got a chance to take of her for a little while. She’s taken care of me my whole life, and she’s just indefatigable,’ Chelsea told Time Warner Cable News North Carolina’s Tim Boyum.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so tired. And she was tired because she’s had pneumonia,’ Chelsea said, revealing that her mother kept her in the dark, too.
‘So I think the fact that she didn’t even tell me, and I talk to my mom every day, and am fiercely close to her, pretty much reveals that she thought it wasn’t a big deal and she could just keep going.’
Chelsea said her mother viewed it as ‘pesky pneumonia.’
‘But even though she is a superwoman, she’s still human, so I’m glad she finally listened to her doctor, took a few days off, and I know she’s excited to get back on the campaign trail tomorrow.’
The campaign was more forthcoming about Tim Kaine, her running mate, than it was about Clinton, revealing his height and weight, which it did not publish for Clinton.
Vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine is in ‘overall excellent health,’ according to a letter the campaign also released Wednesday from his doctor, Brian Monahan, the attending physician of Congress.
It said Kaine is active in his work and physical fitness. He has never smoked and his alcohol use is ‘modest.’
He’s 5-foot-9 and weighed nearly 208 pounds during his last physical in February. An electrocardiogram of Kaine’s heart was normal with the exception of ‘left arterial enlargement.’
Daily Mail.
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