Yahoo Finance Jimmy Carter Says Cancer Has Spread To Brain
Former US President Jimmy Carter says he has "four spots of melanoma on my brain".
He was making his first public remarks since announcing in a statement on 12 August that liver surgery earlier this month found cancer had spread to other parts of his body.
"It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) 's likely to show up other places in my body," he told reporters of the illness at the Carter Center in Atlanta (BSE: ATLANTA.BO - news) , Georgia, his home state.
He said he initially thought he had "just a few weeks left", but was now looking forward with "hope and acceptance".
"I'm perfectly at ease with whatever comes," he said, citing his devout Christian faith.
"I am ready for anything and looking forward to a new adventure," he added.
Mr Carter, a former peanut farmer and ex-Georgia governor, was the nation's 39th president from 1977-81.
He is being treated at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta.
Citing his long career, he said: "I have been as blessed as any human being in the world."
"The best thing I ever did was marry Rosalynn - that's the pinnacle of my life," he added, referring to his wife of 69 years.
Asked if he had any regrets, Mr Carter talked about the ill-fated April 1980 mission he ordered to rescue dozens of American hostages in Iran.
Operation Eagle Claw failed, and the humiliation was partly blamed for Mr Carter losing his White House re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan.
"I wish I'd sent one more helicopter to get the hostages," he said. "We would've rescued them and I would've been re-elected."
Asked about his number one foreign policy hope, the architect of the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt said he hoped for peace in the Middle East.
But he said the current Israeli government has no desire for a two-state solution, adding the US government has no influence compared to its sway in the past.
After leaving the White House, the Democrat set up the Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982 to promote democracy, healthcare and other issues.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has written more than 20 books since leaving office.
In his latest work, A Full Life, he wrote that his father, brother and two sisters had all died of pancreatic cancer and that the trend worried his doctors.
