problem w/ LEFT side of McCain's face?

[npincus]

Camera angle only showed his RIGHT side on CBS Couric interview... Obama was on his left side at debate; aside from contempt, was head motion to the left side impaired? What the hell is wrong with him, physically? MSNBC should not have pulled the health question ad. There IS something whrong with him, physically, and Pailin is waiting in the wings.





http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/draft-anybody-else-notice-anything.html

Joe and Rob both mentioned this to me in the past week, and now several readers have brought it up. I also just noticed that Atrios picked up on this too today. Something wrong, changed, droopy or puffy with McCain's left eye. Anybody else notice anything? I just searched Google a bit more and found references to his eye being droopy in April and May of this year as well. But whatever it is, it seems to be intermittent. (McCain has had 4 bouts of melanoma, and did in 2002 have a benign growth removed from under his left eye.)

I decided to take a look at McCain's Herbert Hoover Speech, as Rob calls the economic speech McCain gave last Friday in Wisconsin, and tried to see what it was that Rob was noticing wrong with McCain's left eye. It was only a 15 second video, so I pulled it up in my iMovie movie editor and checked out each frame (see a selection of still shots above). What you see is apparently McCain's left eye more closed than this right, and/or when he blinks, his left eye is lazier, or blinks slightly out of phase with his right. Either way, it does look like something's up. Perhaps McCain has always had a bad left eye, though it's odd that so many people just noticed this week.

Actually, there's one more thing. A reader wrote me about a week ago, commenting on how suddenly McCain's make up had changed. As though the campaign was suddenly trying to hide something. I read the email, kind of shrugged, and went on my way. Well, today that reader wrote back and noted the story that came out earlier today about McCain's apparently new $5000 make-up artist. Isn't that interesting - suddenly when everyone is noticing something wrong, something changed, with McCain's face, he hires a $5000 make-up artist, and she now seems to be attached at his hip.

[MercutioATC]

1. Ummm, that would be cancer.

He had pretty aggressive surgery on the left side of his face/left temple last year.

[npincus]

2. yes, but the swelling, eye drooping and joined-at-the-hip makeup artist

are recent developments, indicating a new health problem. Whether it is related to his boats w/melanoma... who knows.

[napi21]

3. FWIW, on Fri. Hartmann was talking about this, and someone mentioned

Botox injections, and that Botox can cause a reaction like that if it leaks under the eyelid. They mentioned that his new make-up artist was the same one who works at American Idol, and quite possibly trained to give Botox injections.

I don't think anyone knows for sure what the read deal is, but that could be another possibility.

[elfin]

4. One comment from Americalog....

"I was a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist for 26 years and the signs of the eye drooping, and not working in conjunction with the other, the lisping, and the failure of the face, such as the lips, could be from a small stroke. We routinely looked for things like that, and when I noted it in a patient pre-operatively one morning, I demanded further exams and the patient had actually had a small stroke the night before.

Most ominously, however, is that these things can be early or later signs of spread of melanoma to the brain. I have seen it, and have seen the effects visible such as this from all kinds of brain tumors, from melanoma and other things. Since I am a melanoma survivor myself, believe me, these are ominous signs. McCain is not a very healthy person, it is clear to anyone and most importantly to anyone who is a medical professional.

Believe me, anyone who has had four melanomas, with two of them being on the head, which is one of the most dangerous places to have one, is not someone who should be making decisions for the country. I have seen patients who had a clear checkup, who would appear with multiple or large brain tumors from metastasis just three months later and McCain is a walking time bomb."




I would like to see more non-anecdotal remarks from the medical community about progression of head melanoma etc. And more from real dermatologists about side effects of botox and/or restylane treatments.