It's been two weeks since the world learned that former President Jimmy Carter had entered hospice. Since many patients stay in a hospice program for a week or less, we were all bracing for news at any moment. But now there are reports that he may be more like other patients, whose average length of stay is 78 days.
Obviously, nobody knows. There's only one person we've known to graduate from hospice, and that was Art Buchwald. We'll see what category Carter falls in.
Meanwhile, tributes and reminiscences have poured in from around the globe, giving Carter a lavish and loving send-off before he even goes. We hope he's been able to read or hear about a bunch of them. They must be very satisfying, particularly since — as we well remember — folks couldn't wait for him to get out of Washington in 1981.
Many of the tributes have referenced the President's support of Habitat for Humanity. Not to diss Habitat, but the last 40 years of the Carters' lives have been about so much more than that. Such as: Have you ever heard of Guinea worm? If not, count your blessings, because it's a simply hideous disease that tortured millions of Africans — until the Carters tackled it. You get it by ingesting Guinea worm larvae in unfiltered water. Later, the worms grow inside you to enormous length and push their way out of your body. Real nightmare stuff, right out of "Alien."
When The Carter Center first started its Guinea worm initiative in 1986, nearly four million Africans suffered from the disease. Last year, there were a total of 13 cases. So far in 2023, there have been none.
Jimmy Carter always said he wanted to outlive the last Guinea worm. If the statistics continue to hold up, he may have already done so. Now that's an eradication we can get behind. We cats PURR.
(IMAGE: Jimmy Carter comforts a young Guinea worm patient in Ghana.)
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