The saga of the First Lady’s surgery continues as the press asked again about Melania Trump’s working schedule. President Trump answered questions as he left the White House Friday to head to Quebec for the G7 Summit. The short answer is that Melania’s doctor won’t ok her to fly for one-month post-surgery.

Let’s recap. First Lady Melania Trump entered Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on May 14 for a procedure. The procedure was later identified as an embolization procedure on her kidney to treat a benign condition. She remained in the hospital for almost a week.  After visiting her in the hospital, President Trump said she was “doing great”, as is his standard answer.

So, the First Lady returned to the White House, her place of residence, upon her release from the hospital. After a five day stay in the hospital, it was not a stretch to think the woman would need some recovery time to mend. Melania tweeted out her thanks to all her well-wishers and everything seemed to be fine. And then the press and the haters on social media (but I repeat myself) lost their minds. After no public appearances in almost three weeks, suddenly people who we all know have no real interest in the First Lady, much less respect or appreciation, became convinced something nefarious was afoot. Had she left her husband? Was she recovering from plastic surgery? Was she being held captive, being abused? I’m not exaggerating with this nonsense.

Finally, Melania herself tweeted that she understood that the press was speculating about her and she wanted to let everyone know she was doing well and working at the White House. She had, in fact, been spotted several days before by a few members of the media but that didn’t seem to make the evening news. Then she attended a ceremony at the White House honoring Gold Star families and everyone saw that she is alive and well and looks great. I hope she feels as good as she looks.

The First Lady accompanied President Trump to a roundtable discussion last Wednesday at FEMA to discuss preparedness for the hurricane season upon us. Again, she looked her normal self. We’re all good now, right? Nope.

Melania did not accompany President Trump as he left for Quebec Friday. Why isn’t she going, he was asked. Then he candidly released a bit of news. She wanted to go, he said, and also go to Singapore after the G7 but she isn’t allowed to fly for a month on orders from her doctor. He also said her surgery took four hours and was a big operation. 

Trump said he was attending meetings in Canada and Singapore alone because the first lady is under doctors’ orders not to fly for a month.

“The first lady is great. Right there,” Trump said, pointing up to the White House from the driveway as he departed for Quebec. “And she wanted to go. Can’t fly for one month, the doctors say. She had a big operation. That was a close to a four-hour operation. And she’s doing great.”

“She is a great first lady,” Trump added.

Trump’s comments only deepened the mystery surrounding his wife’s hospitalization in mid-May and her weeks-long absence from the public eye.

That’s right. The president gave the press additional personal information about the First Lady’s surgery and now the “mystery” has “only deepened”. You can’t make this stuff up. Now doctors are being asked if all this sounds legit. They are not Melania’s doctors, therefore there is no way for them to know her case but that doesn’t stop speculation from their corner. Some indicate that the procedure is usually less time consuming and there is a shorter hospital stay. Also, they question the flying restriction, unless it is to keep her close by in case of any potential complication developing as she recovers.  (Circa)

Doctors not involved in Mrs. Trump’s care but familiar with the procedure said embolization most likely was used to remove a type of noncancerous kidney tumor called an angiomylipoma. Embolization is a minimally invasive procedure in which doctors snake a catheter into blood vessels of the kidney to find the right one that is feeding the tumor to block the flow of blood to the growth.

Dr. Lambros Stamatakis of MedStar Washington Hospital Center said embolization can take hours because of the time needed to find the right blood vessel. Trump’s four-hour estimate could cover when his wife was wheeled off to receive anesthesia and time in the recovery room after she came to, Stamatakis said.

He said a procedure that can last a couple of hours on a “normal” patient could run longer on a VIP because doctors “may take a couple extra hours to make sure everything is as perfect as it possibly can be.”

Stamatakis added that five days in the hospital may have been because the first lady was in a government hospital.

“The issue about flying, that is completely and utterly arbitrary,” he said. Typically doctors might want a patient to stay nearby, rather than taking a far-away trip, in case they need follow-up care. But he said there’s seldom a reason for a patient to avoid flying if the patient left the hospital without problems.

Melania’s spokesperson rightfully responds to such medical speculation by doctors not on Melania’s medical team as “uninformed”. I call it an invasion of her right to privacy. She’s not an elected official and she’s not paid by taxpayers. From all outward appearances, the First Lady is, in fact, doing great.