Clinton 'a little scared' before operation

As he prepared for heart bypass surgery early next week, Bill Clinton was in good spirits, dressed in street clothes and walking around his hospital room today, said people close to the Clinton family.

The former president said he was “a little scared, but not much” of the surgery, but was looking forward to a swift recovery and resuming normal activities including jogging.

He was hospitalised yesterday with chest pains and shortness of breath. The operation could limit his role in campaigning for fellow Democrat John Kerry, who is making a run for the White House.

“Let me just say this, Republicans aren’t the only people who want four more years here,” Clinton said in a live interview yesterday evening on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

An angiogram showed that Clinton, who turned 58 two weeks ago, had significant blockage in his heart arteries, but did not suffer a heart attack, said a doctor who performed the test.

Clinton blamed the blockage in part on genetics, but also said he “may have done some damage in those years when I was too careless about what I ate.”

“I guess I’m a little scared, but not much,” he said. ”I’m looking forward to it. I want to get back. I want to see what it’s like to run five miles again.”

His wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said the former president would have surgery early next week and no further information about his condition would be released until the operation was finished.

“I wanted to report to you that my husband is doing very well,” she said outside New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia, where the former president is being treated. “He’s in great humour. He’s beating all of us at cards and the rest of the games we’re playing.”

In bypass surgery, a new piece of blood vessel, usually taken from the patient’s leg, is sewn into place to create a detour around a blockage. Patients typically spend three to five days in the hospital and are encouraged to be fairly active right away.

Clinton had agreed to campaign for Kerry in the two months before the November 2 general election and had already appeared at some Democratic Party events.

President George W. Bush and Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts, each sent best wishes to Clinton.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, called Clinton from Las Vegas and wished him well. Anne Womack, Cheney’s spokeswoman, said the former president “sounded good.”

During his two terms as president, Clinton was an avid jogger also known for his love of fast food.

But in January, Clinton said he had cut out junk food after going on the popular “The South Beach Diet,” which limits carbohydrates and fats, and started a workout regime. He has appeared much thinner since early in the year.

The 6-foot-2-inch president has remained an active political presence since he left the White House in 2001, whether quietly stopping by his Harlem office or drawing a standing ovation for a rousing speech to Democrats at their July convention in Boston. Most recently, he was on the road plugging his memoirs, “My Life.”

Before he suffered chest pains, Clinton had been scheduled to accompany his wife on a two-day tour of upstate New York. Instead, the senator and the couple’s daughter, Chelsea, joined Clinton in New York City.

Sen. Clinton said her husband would “be back in fighting form before very long after the surgery and the period of necessary recovery passes.”

She praised the hospital’s medical staff and said: “We’re delighted we have good health insurance. That makes a big difference. And I hope someday everybody will be able to say the same thing.”

Clinton had a cancerous growth removed from his back shortly after leaving office. In 1996, he had a precancerous lesion removed from his nose and a year before that had a benign cyst taken off his chest.

But otherwise, Clinton suffered only the usual problems that often accompany normal ageing and a taste for junk food – periods of slightly elevated cholesterol and hearing loss. In 1997, he was fitted with hearing aids, and he also battled allergies.

Clinton first went to a hospital on Thursday after suffering the chest pains and shortness of breath, his office said in a statement. He spent the night at his Chappaqua home.

Yesterday, at the Westchester Medical Centre, near his home, he was given an angiogram, in which dye is used to detect blockages or narrowing of coronary arteries. The test revealed “multivessel coronary artery disease, normal heart function and no heart attack,” said Dr Anthony Pucillo, who performed the procedure.

Pucillo said the blockage was significant enough to warrant an operation.