Clinton takes crucial step in recovery after heart op

Former US President Bill Clinton was described as doing well today, breathing on his own as he recovers from an operation to relieve arteries so severely clogged that they had posed imminent danger of a major heart attack.

He was taken off his respirator last night – a crucial step in his recovery, Bob Kelly, a member of Clinton’s surgery team, said today. “Everything is going very well,” he said.

Clinton underwent the four-hour quadruple bypass operation yesterday at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. His heart disease was extensive, with blockages in some arteries well over 90%, doctors said.

“There was a substantial likelihood that he would have had a substantial heart attack,” said Dr Allan Schwartz, chief of cardiology. Doctors called Clinton’s operation successful and said his return to full health will take weeks.

The former president also had high blood pressure and may not have been adequately treated for high cholesterol. His doctors said he was put on a cholesterol-lowering drug a few days ago.

Clinton was prescribed cholesterol medicine in 2001 as he was leaving office.

“These past few days have been quite an emotional roller-coaster for us,” said his wife Hillary in a statement. “His optimism and faith will carry him through the difficult weeks and months ahead – of that we have no doubt.”

The 58-year-old former president, a Democrat who served from 1993 to 2001, went to the hospital late last week after complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath, but doctors revealed that he’d had these symptoms for several months. They said he had blamed them on lapses in his exercise routine and acid reflux.

It was finally discovered that the problem was his heart after one episode occurred while he was resting and lasted longer than before, they said. Clinton could leave the hospital in four or five days.

In bypass surgery, doctors remove one or more blood vessels from elsewhere in the body – in Clinton’s case, two arteries from the chest and a vein from the leg – and attach them to arteries serving the heart, detouring blood around blockages.

Clinton has blamed his heart problems in part on genetics – there is a history of heart disease in his mother’s family – but also said he “may have done some damage in those years when I was too careless about what I ate”.

He was lampooned during his presidency for his inability to resist fatty fast food, but he was also an avid jogger during his two terms in the White House. In recent months he has appeared much slimmer. He has said he cut out junk food, begun working out and adopted the low-carbohydrate, low-fat South Beach diet.

Clinton had planned to campaign for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, but the recovery from surgery will take him off the stump – at least for now – with just two months left until the November 2 election.

More than 45,000 get-well wishes have poured in for Clinton, including tens of thousands of e-mails sent to the Web site of his presidential library.

“You are surrounded by cherished family, friends and a nation that adores you and prays for your full and complete recovery,” wrote Toni Maryanna Rossi. “You’ll be jogging five miles a day in no time.”