After health vote, McCain heads home for cancer treatment

McCain will return to Washington after the summer break

WASHINGTON: US Senator John McCain will head to Arizona to resume his cancer treatment and will return to Washington after the summer break, his office said Friday, following his decisive vote to kill his party's health care reforms.

"On Monday, July 31, he will begin a standard post-surgical regimen of targeted radiation and chemotherapy," his office said in a statement.

"During that time, Senator McCain will maintain a work schedule. He plans to return to Washington at the conclusion of the August recess."

The 80-year-old was diagnosed with brain cancer less than two weeks ago, after doctors discovered a brain tumour when the lawmaker underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from above his left eye.



The tumour, known as glioblastoma, is a particularly aggressive brain tumour affecting adults. It is of the same category of cancer that led to the death of another icon of the US Senate, Ted Kennedy, who died in 2009 at age 77.

Days after the diagnosis, McCain was on a plane returning to Washington, where he cast a series of critical votes on health care.
Early Friday during one of the most tense Senate votes in years, his opposition helped sink the latest Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

McCain chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he had hoped to be in Washington to shepherd a massive defence spending bill through the chamber. That task will now be handled by other senators.