House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) says he’s grateful for his health this Thanksgiving, three months after announcing he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
“I’m thankful for my health, and just the love and support from family and friends,” Scalise said Monday on SiriusXM’s “The Julie Mason Show.”
“I’m feeling great. I’m in the last few weeks of chemotherapy treatment,” Scalise said. The 58-year-old lawmaker said in August he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.
“They caught me early — early detection’s key,” Scalise said of his diagnosis. “For anybody that’s feeling something wrong with their system — there was something wrong with me, and my doctors figured it out. They detected cancer and they got me on an aggressive chemotherapy early.”
“I’m about three months in, and at the end of the three months hopefully they say I won’t need to take the chemo anymore because the cancer will be just about all knocked out,” he said.
Scalise, who ended his bid to be House Speaker last month, said he’s looking forward to a Cajun-seasoned, deep-fried turkey on Thanksgiving — and also expects a side of politics at his dinner table.
Asked by host Julie Mason if he had a “crazy liberal cousin who likes to tweak” him, Scalise replied with a laugh, “We have one, but you know we have fun with him.”
“We are actually really good about the politics. We’ll joke about it but don’t take it too serious,” Scalise said.
“Considering what I do for a living, we take it lighthearted,” he added, saying Thanksgiving food provides a political distraction.
“Everybody just enjoys each other’s company and you’re eating so much good food, that you don’t have time to get caught up in anything else.”