Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
He’d long been known as a fighter who survived against all odds after several plane crashes as a naval aviator, with the final one resulting inJohn McCainbeingheld as a prisoner of warfor five-and-a-half years in North Vietnam.
And yet, in the end, it would bea deadly cancerthattook McCain’s lifejust 13 months after the shocking announcement on July 19, 2017 that hewas diagnosedwith an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma. Doctors had found the tumor during surgery to remove a blood clot above his left eye on July 14 of last year.
As McCain was recovering from the surgery in Arizona and considering treatment options, McCain’s daughterMeghangot into a screaming match with her dad over his plans to fly to Washington tovote on the Republicans’ attemptto repeal Obamacare.
“I said, ‘What could possibly happen if he gets on a plane?’ and the doctor said he would like hemorrhage and it can be dangerous if he still has air in his brain, and all this crazy stuff,”The Viewco-hostsaid in the HBO documentaryJohn McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls.
“So I freaked out and I screamed at everyone that he couldn’t get on the plane and that I didn’t agree with it,” she said. “And my dad snapped at me and said, ‘It’s my life and it’s my choice.”’
McCain, a Republican,made the tripand took to the floor of the senate on Friday, July 28. Hisdeciding no voteon Republicans’ efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, saved millions from losing healthcare coverage.
“I will not vote for this bill as it is today,” McCain forcefully told his senate colleagues, many of whom reacted with stunned silence and a few audible gasps.
“He was just talking about the fullness of his life,” Graham told PEOPLE last September. “How many things he was able to do and things hopefully, he can do.”
McCain faced the cancer with the fortitude that got him through his POW torture decades ago.
Horst Faas/AP
“It’s also brought out a philosophical side,” Lieberman continued. “He looks back and is very grateful for the life that he’s lived.”
“He was born to serve our country and he’s served it with great honor and he’s gotten enormous satisfaction out of that. I think he feels as he looks back he’s worked very hard to make a difference for the better for our country, he is a real patriot.”
During Lieberman’s visit, most of McCain’s seven children were there, a devoted brood who spent time recalling childhood memories.
“A lot of closeness,” says Lieberman. “They are very supportive. It all means a lot to him.”
McCain loved nature and regaled his friends with how many birds he’d see fluttering around the homestead as he sat on his patio. “There was a succession of hummingbirds coming to the bird feeders,” Lieberman said, “and he got excited every time he saw one.”
McCainappeared onThe Viewin October to celebrate Meghan’s 33rd birthday, a few weeks after shestarted on the showas a cohost. The Senator said he was feeling “fine” and “getting plenty of rest, plenty of food, plenty of exercise.”
“I don’t mean to get a little sentimental, but it does make you appreciate every minute of every hour of every day,” he said. “We should all thank God for every minute because we are blessed. And we’re blessed to be in the greatest nation on Earth.”
Heidi Gutman/ABC
Still, the seriousness of his illness — it took the lives of good friend Sen.Ted KennedyandBeau Biden, son of former vice presidentJoe Biden— prompted Meghan tomove her weddingup toNov. 21.
At the time she told PEOPLE: “My dad is doing really well right now, but it’s a deeply unpredictable cancer. You’re really just living scan to scan. I wanted to make sure that he was — that we were all — there. Why wait?”
By December, McCain would remain in Arizona as he continued to battle the brain cancer and go to physical therapy to work on regaining his strength. In April, hewas hospitalizedfollowing emergency intestinal surgery related to his diverticulitis.
Still, in his final months, McCain continued to make news. In his bestselling book “The Restless Wave,” published in May, McCain expressed regret that he had not chosen Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent, as his running mate during the2008 presidential campaign, instead ofSarah Palin.
McCain publicly rebukedDonald Trumpon a number of issues, both domestic and international. In May, after McCain opposed Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Trump aide Kelly Sadlersaid of McCain: “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway.” The leaked Sadler criticism created a firestorm, and outpouring of support for McCain.
In July, in what would be his final jab at the president, McCainexcoriated Trumpfollowing apress conference in Helsinkiwith Trump and Russian presidentVladimir Putin. At the time, Trump accepted Putin’s denials that Russia had launched cyberattacks to interfere with the 2016 presidential election rather than believing U.S. intelligence agencies’ unanimous conclusion that it had.
“No prior president,” said McCain, who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee, “has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.”
source: people.com
