Sir Robert has meal after cancer surgery

Press, 26 December 1987, Page 4

Sir Robert has meal after cancer surgery

PA Auckland Sir Robert Muldoon yesterday had his first meal since his bowel cancer operation, but it was hardly a Christmas banquet. “I had half a cup of thin soup and a small piece of red jelly with no flavour,” he said from his North Shore Hospital bed. “I thought of the starving kids in Ethiopia.” Sir Robert’s basic feast was brightened, however, by visits throughout the day by family members, and by his rapidly improving health. “I didn’t feel that good in the days after the operation, but that’s just the way things are ... I’m getting better every day and hope to leave in about a week,” Sir

Robert said. The Muldoon family’s traditional Boxing Day trek to their Hatfields Beach holiday home has been delayed, but Sir Robert hopes to catch the best of the summer at the bach. Sir Robert had about 30cm of intestine removed this week. “I’ve been thinking about that young fellow in Australia, Regan Chibnall, while he was awaiting a transplant,” Sir Robert said. “They don’t feed you with these drips, they just turn them on and off ... He’s had them in most of the year. It must be very hard,” he said. Sir Robert, a keen flower grower, has been overwhelmed by the number of bouquets sent in, including many of his

special favourite white lilies. He said Lady Muldoon had given up counting the messages of good will after the number topped 200. “They’ve come from all over New Zealand, and some from Australia. There are -some wonderful people out there,” Sir Robert said. He is expected to be in North Shore Hospital for another week. The pathologist’s report on the removed portion of the bowel said that there had been a minute fragment of residual tumour several millimetres in diameter. This represented the very earliest form of bowel cancer, the report said, and no additional surgery or treatment was required.