Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski
WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow after slipping in a State Department garage in June 2009, she returned to work in just a few days. Her arm in a sling, she juggled speeches and a trip to India and Thailand with physical therapy, rebuilding a joint held together with wire and pins.
It was vivid evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s indomitable stamina and work
ethic — as a first lady, senator, presidential candidate and, for the
past four years, the most widely traveled secretary of state in American
history.
But after a fall at home in December that caused a concussion, and a subsequent diagnosis of a blood clot in her head, it has taken much longer for Mrs. Clinton to bounce back. She was released from a hospital
in New York on Wednesday, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, and her
husband, former President Bill Clinton. On Thursday, she told
colleagues that she hoped to be in the office next week.
Her health scare, though, has reinforced the concerns of friends and
colleagues that the years of punishing work and travel have taken a
heavy toll. Even among her peers at the highest levels of government,
Mrs. Clinton, 65, is renowned for her grueling schedule. Over the past
four years, she was on the road for 401 days and spent the equivalent of
87 full days on a plane, according to the State Department’s Web site.
In one 48-hour marathon in 2009 that her aides still talk about, she traveled from talks with Palestinian
leaders in Abu Dhabi to a midnight meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu in Jerusalem, then boarded a plane for Morocco, staying up
all night to work on other issues, before going straight to a meeting of
Arab leaders the next morning.
“So many people who know her have urged me to tell her not to work so
hard,” said Melanne S. Verveer, who was Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff
when she was first lady and is now the State Department’s ambassador at
large for women’s issues. “Well, that’s not easy to do when you’re
Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t spare herself.”
It is not just a matter of duty, Ms. Verveer and others said. Mrs.
Clinton genuinely relishes the work, pursuing a brand of personal
diplomacy that, she argues, requires her to travel to more places than
her predecessors.
While there is no medical evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s clot was caused
by her herculean work habits, her cascade of recent health problems,
beginning with a stomach virus, has prompted those who know her best to
say that she desperately needs a long rest. Her first order of business
after leaving the State Department in the coming weeks, they say, should
be to take care of herself.
Some even wonder whether this setback will — or should — temper the
feverish speculation that she will make another run for the White House
in 2016.
“I am amazed at the number of women who come up to me and tell me she
must run for president,” said Ellen Chesler, a New York author and a
friend of Mrs. Clinton’s. “But perhaps this episode will alter things a
bit.”
Given Mrs. Clinton’s enduring status as a role model, Ms. Chesler said
women would be watching which path she decides to take, as they plan
their own transitions out of the working world.
“Do remember that women of our generation are really the first to have
worked through the life cycle in large numbers,” she added. “Many seem
to be approaching retirement with dread.”
For now, aides say, Mrs. Clinton’s focus is on wrapping up her work at
the State Department. She would like to take part in a town hall-style
meeting, thank her staff and sit for some interviews. But first she has
to get clearance from her doctors, who are watching her to make sure
that the blood thinners they have prescribed for her clot are working.
Speaking to a meeting of a foreign policy advisory board from her home
in Chappaqua, N.Y., on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton said she was crossing her
fingers and encouraging her doctors to let her return next week. “I’m
trying to be a compliant patient,” she said, according to a person who
was in the room. “But that does require a certain level of patience,
which I’ve had to cultivate over the last three and a half weeks.”
While convalescing, Mrs. Clinton has spoken with President Obama and has
held a 30-minute call with Senator John Kerry, Democrat of
Massachusetts, whom Mr. Obama nominated as her successor.
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