WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg plans to be back at work for the court’s next public session, less than three weeks after surgery for pancreatic cancer.
Ginsburg intends to be in court when the justices hear arguments Feb. 23, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Friday.
The 75-year-old justice is recuperating at a New York hospital after undergoing surgery Thursday. Arberg had no other information on Ginsburg’s condition.
Ginsburg has been on the court more than 15 years and is its only woman.
Her illness raises the possibility that one of the ideologically divided court’s leading liberals might have to curtail her work or even step down before she had planned. Pancreatic cancer is often deadly.
The diminutive justice underwent surgery for colon cancer in 1999, followed by chemotherapy and radiation, without missing a day on the bench.
Looking back on her first fight with what she called “a dreadful disease,” Ginsburg said her treatment was arduous. But having a job to turn to was a great benefit.
“Work, I found, was the best balm,” Ginsburg said in 2001.
Chemotherapy and radiation also are common after pancreatic surgery.
Ginsburg’s plan for a quick return to work hinges on avoiding complications after surgery. Anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent of patients encounter complications, depending on the type of pancreatic surgery, said Dr. Michael Farnell, chairman of the gastroenterologic and general-surgery division at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Leakage of pancreatic fluid, which could cause an infection, is among the most common problems, Farnell said.
For now, Ginsburg will remain in the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York for seven to 10 days, said her surgeon, Dr. Murray Brennan, according to the court.
The new cancer was discovered during a routine, annual exam late last month at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. A CT scan revealed a tumor measuring about 1 centimeter across at the center of the pancreas, the court said.
