GOP Rep. Scalise: My 'Cancer Has Dropped Dramatically'

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., has greatly improved his long-term health prognosis with an aggressive treatment of his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.

"We had quick decisions to make in the hospital, which was do we go into an aggressive form of chemotherapy?" Scalise said Wednesday at a news conference, referring to treatment decisions made with his oncologist from New Orleans, who he said has been "phenomenal."

"How do we address the cancer, because the cancer's been putting me in the hospital and has been doing a lot of damage to my body, so we had to get control over that."

Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, praised the decades-long FDA approved treatments for his cancer type, adding he has made a "decision to aggressively pursue it" and is one month into it.

"The good news is the cancer has dropped dramatically because of the success of the chemotherapy attacking the cancer," Scalise said. "Thank God those prayers have been answered. We're continuing to follow my doctor's advice and my doctor said you can come back to work."

Scalise added he is ready for a "full week of work and whatever else it's going to take."

The House Republicans are facing a deadline to get their goal of approving around a dozen individual 2024 appropriations bills passed before Saturday's deadline that could force the government to shut down Sunday at 12:01 a.m. ET.

A Continuing Resolution (CR) is a common way for a deadlocked Congress to keep the government funding going as fiscal debates are ongoing, but many conservatives in the House lament that is always the result when Democrats oppose spending cuts.

Scalise was among those wounded in 2017 when a gunman attacked lawmakers at a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia. The congressman was shot in the hip and was hospitalized, and he underwent a painful rehabilitation.

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