After year with cancer, Kennedy focuses on legacy

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BOSTON (AP) — Between doctors' appointments, Edward Kennedy has been working the phones, urging Senate colleagues to pass a health care bill. He's trying to finish his memoirs. And he's overseeing the design of a namesake building to stand next to his brother's presidential library.

A year after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, the 77-year-old last surviving Kennedy brother has defied some doctors' expectations and worked steadily to cement his personal and political legacies.

"He's taken about every bit of human tragedy you could and nothing has stopped his human purpose for what we are all here to do," said Paul Kirk, a longtime family friend and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Kennedy learned he had a malignant tumor called a glioma after suffering a seizure on May 17, 2008, at his home in Hyannis Port. The prognosis was grim: Median survival for the worst form of gliomas is 12 to 15 months, although the time depends on the type of glioma. Kennedy has not released the specifics of his diagnosis.

After he was diagnosed, Kennedy gathered top cancer specialists and slipped away to North Carolina to undergo an aggressive, risky surgery.

Just a month later, he returned triumphantly to the Senate to cast a dramatic and decisive vote on a Medicare bill. Then in January, Kennedy donned a fedora and fulfilled his promise to attend Barack Obama's inauguration as president.

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He has been apart of nearly everything positive in DC since the 1960s.