Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was admitted to a south Georgia hospital over the weekend for treatment of a urinary tract infection, a spokeswoman said Monday.
Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman for The Carter Center, said in a statement that the 95-year-old former president was admitted to Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus over the weekend.
‘He is feeling better and looks forward to returning home soon. We will issue a statement when he is released for further rest and recovery at home,’ she added.
Carter, America’s oldest living president, has overcome several health challenges in recent years. He underwent surgery to relieve pressure on his brain from bleeding linked to recent falls last month.
Former President Jimmy Carter, pictured in November, was admitted to a south Georgia hospital over the weekend for treatment of a urinary tract infection, a spokeswoman said
The 95-year-old former president was admitted to Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, pictured
Carter was also diagnosed with melanoma in 2015, announcing that the cancer had spread to other parts of his body.
After partial removal of his liver, treatment for brain lesions, radiation and immunotherapy, he said he was cancer-free.
A fall last spring required him to get hip replacement surgery.
Then on October 6, he hit his head in another fall and received 14 stitches, but still traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to help build a Habitat for Humanity home shortly thereafter.
He fractured his pelvis in another fall later that month and was briefly hospitalized.
Last Wednesday, Carter was released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after recovering from surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by bleeding from a fall.
Former President Jimmy Carter pictured following a fall in October
Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush attend the ceremony where Donald J. Trump was to be sworn-in as president in January 2017
Carter, a Democrat, was the 39th president of the United States, serving one term from 1977 until 1981.
He was defeated in his re-election bid by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Carter went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work and has lived longer after leaving the White House than any former president in U.S. history.
In November Carter reflected on his own mortality after suffering a broken pelvis when he fell in his home on October 21.
The former president taught a Bible lesson on life after death at a church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he has lived since leaving office in 1981.
Using a walker, the 95-year-old Democrat slowly entered the crowded sanctuary at Maranatha Baptist Church.
‘Morning, everybody,’ he said cheerfully.
With help, Carter sat on a motorized lift chair at the front of the room to teach a 45-minute lesson based on the Old Testament book of Job.
Referring to a cancer diagnosis that resulted in the removal of part of his liver in 2015, Carter said he was is ‘at ease’ with the idea of dying and believes in life after death.
More than 400 people were on hand in the main hall and smaller, overflow rooms where the lesson was shown on television.
Rev Lowden said Secret Service agents, relatives and fellow church members all discouraged Carter from teaching because of the injury, but he insisted.
‘He is pouring out that you might see Christ while he is suffering,’ Lowden told the crowd.
President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter in the White House, pictured in 1977. Carter, a Democrat, was the 39th president of the United States, serving one term from 1977 until 1981. He was defeated in his re-election bid by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980
Carter remained for the worship service after teaching, sitting in a pew beside his wife, Rosalynn, and singing hymns with the congregation.
Carter, who surpassed George H.W. Bush as the longest-lived US president in history this spring, said: ‘I assumed, naturally, that I was going to die very quickly,’ he said of his 2015 cancer diagnosis.
‘I obviously prayed about it. I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.’
‘It didn’t really matter to me whether I died or lived. Except I was going to miss my family, and miss the work at the Carter Center and miss teaching your Sunday school service sometimes and so forth. All those delightful things,’ he said.
