What health problems has José “Pepe” Mujica had?

( Spanish) — José “Pepe” Mujica, former president of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015, said this Thursday that the esophageal cancer he was diagnosed with last year spread to his liver. For this reason, Mujica assured that he is “dying” and reported that he will not give any more interviews.

“The cancer in the esophagus is colonizing my liver. “I don’t stop it with anything,” Mujica said in an interview with the Uruguayan media. Search.

The former Uruguayan president indicated that he will not undergo medical treatments and asked to be left alone.

Raquel Pannone, Pepe Mujica’s personal doctor, said at a press conference this Thursday that the former president will continue with a good diet and medication to treat the symptoms he currently has, but commented that other types of treatments could be counterproductive.

“Although there is the possibility of treatment at home, with a mostly palliative criterion, all treatments have several side effects, and enduring the side effects is sometimes very difficult,” Pannone said.

“The idea is that it is the easiest for him, and we are going to consult and resort to everything he needs at each stage,” added the specialist.

A few days ago, before the end of 2024, Mujica successfully underwent esophageal surgery so that doctors could place a stent to help you feed.

Former president José Mujica announced in April of last year that a tumor was detected in his esophagus, after undergoing a check-up.

Pannone told that “due to the characteristics of the image” it would be a cancerous tumor.

The former president indicated that this fact was “doubly complex” in his case, due to pre-existing health conditions, specifically an immunological disease, which was one of the reasons why Mujica retired from politics in 2020.

The esophagus is a part of the body that a few years ago had already represented health problems for Mujica.

Later, in August, Mujica’s personal doctor reported that the cancer had been eliminated with radiotherapy, but the 89-year-old politician was left with kidney problems and difficulties eating food.

Before the detection of the tumor, Pepe Mujica’s most recent health problem had been an ulcer in the esophagus, for which he had to undergo an endoscopy. All of this took place in April 2021, when he had already retired from politics.

At that time, Raquel Pannone, the former president’s doctor, told that Mujica had to undergo this procedure because doctors suspected that he had a fish bone stuck in his esophagus.

After the intervention, Pannone explained that Mujica underwent an endoscopic procedure due to “the ingestion of some products.” However, he did not confirm whether it was a fish bone.

The surgeon Andrés Munyo said that the ingestion of “foreign bodies” – without specifying which ones – led to an injury (ulcer) in the esophagus, which is why it was decided to perform the endoscopy.

An endoscopy “is a procedure that allows the doctor to see inside your body. It uses an instrument called an endoscope or viewing tube. Endoscopes have a tiny camera attached to a long, thin tube. The doctor moves it through a cavity, hollow organ, or opening in the body to see the inside of an organ. Sometimes, endoscopes are used for surgery,” notes the specialized site. MedlinePlus.

Pannone he added So that process was the one used: “No one cut anything or operated on anyone.”

Mujica saying goodbye as senator: “Succeeding in life is getting up and starting over every time you fall”

Pepe Mujica announced his definitive retirement from politics in the session of the Chamber of Senators of Uruguay on October 20, 2020, in the middle of the first year of the covid-19 pandemic.

At that time, Mujica assured that he was leaving his position in the Senate and was withdrawing from politics in general due to the pandemic.

“Honestly, I’m leaving because the pandemic is driving me away. Being a senator means talking to people and going everywhere. The game is not played in the offices. And I am threatened from all sides, due to double circumstances: old age and suffering from a chronic immunological disease. “If a vaccine (against Covid-19) appears tomorrow, I cannot get vaccinated,” Mujica explained in the Senate session.

According to the Mayo Clinicthe risk of suffering severe symptoms of covid-19 increases in older adults and in those with serious health problems, such as those related to a weakened immune system.

Due to his age (85 years when he announced his retirement) and his immunological disease, Mujica was part of the population at greatest risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid-19.

This Monday, when announcing the tumor, the former president of Uruguay once again emphasized the issue of the immunological disease and said that he has suffered from it for more than two decades.

“(The tumor in the esophagus) is doubly complex in my case, because I have suffered from an immunological disease for more than 20 years that affected, among other things, my kidneys. Which creates obvious difficulties for chemotherapy or surgery techniques. The doctors are evaluating all of this, doing cellular analysis, to see how this story continues,” he said.

What will Pepe Mujica’s treatment for esophageal cancer be like?

In November 2012, when he was president of Uruguay, José Mujica had to cancel a trip to Spain after “the appearance of pain in the right leg”.

Faced with this pain, the president underwent a Doppler ultrasoundwhich is “a type of ultrasound that uses sound waves to show how well blood is circulating through your blood vessels,” according to MedlinePlus.

This ultrasound, according to reported At that time, the Presidency of Uruguay “showed that there would be a small clot in one of his veins.”

Likewise, with Doppler ultrasound, an acute thrombosis could be ruled out and, in its place, “chronic venous compromise” was evident. reported Raquel Pannone to the local channel VTV.

This venous compromise comes from chronic venous lesions “that date back a long time,” said In 2012, the doctor interviewed several communications professionals.

Torture when he was a political prisoner

In the middle of the military dictatorship of Uruguay (from 1973 to 1985), Pepe Mujica was a political prisoner and spent 15 years of his life deprived of liberty, according to a biography made by the country’s Public Television.

The Popular Participation Movement (MPP), a political group of which Mujica is founder, indicates that the retired politician was no longer imprisoned in 1985, thanks to an amnesty granted after the return of democracy to the nation.

“Over a period of almost 15 years, he was subjected to numerous tortures in prison,” adds the MPP.

Mujica said in his farewell speech before the Senate in 2020 some of the torture he suffered.

“Being tied with wire for six months with his hands behind his back; leave my body because I couldn’t stay in a truck and stay (there) for two or three days; “Going two years without being taken to bathe and having to bathe with a bottle, a cup of water and a handkerchief,” he said.

“I’ve been through everything, but I don’t hate anyone. And I want to convey to young people: we must give thanks to life. “Succeeding in life is not winning, succeeding in life is getting up and starting over every time you fall,” he added.

“I want to thank you and, also, convey to the girls and boys of this country, to the young people, that life is beautiful, that it is spent and it goes away. The crux of succeeding in life is starting over every time you fall. And that, if there is anger, let them transform it into hope,” said the former president.

This note was originally published in April 2024.