Trump Visits Walter Reed.

[toucana]

A number of reports say that president Trump visited the Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Saturday for several hours.

https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/trump-chest-pain/

Conflicting explanations have been offered by various White House sources, some saying that the president was taking part of his routine annual physical examination early (it normally takes place in February), others suggesting he was visiting the family of a young serviceman.

The report that went viral however, was a claim on Twitter by Andrew Vernon who is an op-ed writer for The Hill saying that according to his sources the president was suffering chest discomfort.

Andrew Vernon has drawn heavy flak on Twitter and elsewhere for reporting this claim which isn’t supported by other media, but it turns out that he may have better credentials than his critics imagine.

According to an article on him by the University of Maine, Vernon used to work at the Veterans Administration in the position of “coordinator and cardio-pulmonary rehabilitation therapist with the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service.”

https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2019/07/15/andrew-vernon-army-veteran-and-kpe-alum-fights-to-raise-awareness-about-veteran-suicides/

CNN are carrying a report saying that the president’s visit to Walter Reed did not follow the protocol of a routine presidential medical visit. There were no prior general notications to staff at the center, and no partial shut-down of the facility to facilitate security.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/17/politics/trump-physical-walter-reed-protocol-routine-presidential-visit/index.html

Several experts familiar with White House medical procedures said that Trump can get routine labwork done at the White House's on-site clinic, indicating Trump needed tests that can't be done there.

[Serpent]

He's setting up the fallback play, right? When the rest of this wagonload hits the fan, he can check himself in, become inaccessible and tweet his followers that the big bad Dems gave him a heart attack.
Wonder who gave him the idea.

[toucana]

The odd thing is that something similar happened to president Richard Nixon back on 13 July 1973, just as the Watergate scandal was gathering a real head of steam.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1973/7/13/pneumonia-sends-nixon-to-hospital-out/

People were pretty sceptical about Nixon vanishing off into the Bethesda Naval Hospital at that moment, and they wondered if it was just a sympathy/distraction ploy. But in fact Nixon was suffering from viral pneumonia, and he really did need urgent medical attention.

I remember this rather well because it happened just as I flew out to the USA for the very first time on a seven week visit.

..
p.s - Jonathan Lemire of AP reports on Twitter that no one saw Trump return from Walter Reed on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/jonlemire/status/1196212773014900736

He hasn't been seen at the WH on Sunday, and he isn't scheduled to have any public appointments today, even though it's a Monday.

[Serpent]

Well, okay, the stress level must be pretty high. But he can't just .... Not now!
Please tell me he's bad-mouthing somebody on Twitter!

[TheVat]

He is. Though, I have to add, his spelling was slightly better than normal.

"Dave" fans may be wondering if Trump, like Kevin Kline in that droll film, has a double out there somewhere.

I really hope not.

I wish Trump well, seriously. A heart attack is not something I would wish on anyone, and I would hope that, if he does have angina or similar cardiac troubles, he will have the sense to step down and ease into the slow lane.

[Serpent]

Ha! I immediately thought the same thing earlier, about the double (None of the comedians I've seen come close to a physical resemblance.). It could only be an improvement... except that Trump's "boy scout" wouldn't play as well as Ben Kingsley.

Anyway, I wish him a prison term, not an easy out that would, moreover, garner a lot of sympathy.

[toucana]

The controversy over president Trump’s unexplained visit to the Walter Reed Medical Center in November 2019 has been reignited by a claim in a new book by NYT correspondent Michael S. Schmidt that VP Mike Pence was placed on standby to temporarily take over the powers of the presidency at that time.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/31/politics/trump-walter-reed-visit-pence/index.html

It is claimed that Pence was warned that the provisions of the 25th amendment might need to be invoked if the president had to be placed under general anaesthesia during the visit to Walter Reed.

President Trump has responded furiously to this new claim with an oddly specific Twitter denial that he had ever suffered a series of mini-strokes or TIA (transient ischaemic attacks) - when no one in the press had actually made any such suggestion.

Vice President Mike Pence added to the problem by appearing on Fox News last night and saying “I cannot recall being placed on standby”. Everyone knows that “cannot recall” is a political code-speak for “It’s true, but I don’t want to either admit or deny it in public”.

The question of quite what medical procedures president Trump might have undergone at Walter Reed remains a hot topic. The White House medical centre is reportedly well equipped to handle most types of medical examination and lab work. The one exception would be something like a CT or MRI scan which would require the use of complex scanners found only at a major medical centre.

Two plausible possibilities come to mind:
i. A Coronary Calcium scan to check for heart disease and arteriosclerosis. This would require a multi-slice CT (computerised tomography) scan, a complex form of axial-scanning X-ray.

ii. A PET (positron emission tomography) scan which uses special dyes containing radioactive tracers that are injected or ingested. The tracer will collect in areas of higher chemical activity often associated with disease processes. A PET scan is used to check for cancer, heart problems and brain disorders.

https://www.healthline.com/health/pet-scan

Both of these are routinely performed as out-patient procedures. It still doesn’t explain why a general anaesthetic might have been under consideration. One possibility is that some patients with anxiety issues need to be sedated before MRI, CT or PET scans can be performed successfully on them.

[Serpent]

Or, it might be a last resort to pry that damn phone out of his hands, so it doesn't blow up the CAT scanner. Or, he just wanted someone else to be standing right there, holding the bag, if/when the impeachment hearings went badly wrong.

Most probably, it was simply a cover-all contingencies medical decision, in case they found a tumour, embolism or rupture that requires immediate surgery.

[TheVat]

[REMOVES MODERATOR HAT, SLIPS OFF GLOVES...]


The real medical problem, for doctors, is when the entire patient IS a tumour. Hopefully the surgery scheduled for Nov. 3 will be successful. A serious concern will be if the tumour has metastasized so far that the excision will prove useless in the long run.

[charon]

Considering his age and the pressure he's under I'm amazed he's lasted this long. But he did volunteer...

[Serpent]

I'm tired of waiting for God to rectify His mistake - He's fumbled so many opportunities. Now, I'm betting on the Praetorian Guard... but then, he probably fired all the good ones and the guard he hired are as competent as all his other staff.