AFP - Veteran US Senator Edward Kennedy took the helm of his yacht Monday in a sailing regatta just a week after doctors performed a brain biopsy that diagnosed him with cancer.
Proving there is still wind in his sails, the 76-year-old took a ferry to Nantucket island where he stepped aboard his 50-foot (15-meter) schooner Mya for the Nantucket-to-Hyannis return leg of the annual Figawi race.
Kennedy, accompanied on deck by wife Victoria, sons Teddy and Patrick Kennedy, and fellow Senator Chris Dodd, completed the leg in a swift 2.5 hours under sunny skies, and declared it a "great day" on the ocean.
The liberal lion of the senate and the last surviving brother of assassinated president John F. Kennedy, Kennedy concealed the bandage on his head from the brain biopsy with a Red Sox baseball cap.
Kennedy was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on May 17 after suffering a seizure at his family's compound in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod.
The diagnosis that he had a malignant brain tumor sent shockwaves through Congress, where he has been a dominant figure for nearly half a century.
But his wife last week told the Kennedy clan in an email that her husband had been eager to check out of hospital so he could get organized for the regatta, in which he has been a keen competitor for most of its 30-year history.
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080526/pl_afp/uspoliticskennedyhealth [link] 
05-26-2008, 10:12 PM
