Argentina’s Fernandez recovering well after surgery

PILAR (Reuters) – Argentina’s  popular president, Cristina Fernandez, is recovering well after  undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer yesterday, setting the  stage for her return to work later this month.

Cristina Fernandez

Fernandez’s papillary carcinoma was detected during a  routine medical checkup just before Christmas and there was no  sign the disease had spread, government officials said.

The cancer diagnosis came just months after the center-left  leader easily won a second four-year term in office. Doctors  have said the 58-year-old president has a better than 90 percent  chance of recovery.

“The surgery on President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was  carried out without any complication,” presidential spokesman  Alfredo Scoccimarro told reporters, adding that she will remain  hospitalized for about 72 hours.

A few hundred supporters cheered upon hearing the news, some  of them holding signs reading “Strength Cristina.” They were  gathered outside the Austral Hospital in the city of Pilar, some  28 miles (45 km) north of the capital Buenos Aires.

Fernandez’s already high approval ratings could get an extra  lift from public sympathy over her illness as they did following  the death late in 2010 of her husband and predecessor as  president, Nestor Kirchner. The news of her ailment shook a country where Eva Peron, the  wife of legendary leader Juan Peron, has been revered for  decades after dying of cancer at the age of 33. Like “Evita,”  Fernandez is loved by some for her efforts to help the poor.“We were all worried about how she was doing. She’s a great  help to all of us … and luckily everything went well. Now we  have to wait for her to recover and forge ahead,” said Irma  Acosta, a 60-year-old worker.

Doctors removed the president’s thyroid gland during an  operation that lasted some 3-1/2 hours.