Good news from Kiernan: tumor was benign

“It’s the best possible outcome,”  Erin Kiernan said.

Erin Kiernan, wife of former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kiernan, just called the Radio Iowa newsroom with good news.  Her husband’s surgeon called the couple last night to say the tumor removed from around Kiernan’s salivary gland last week was benign.

As you may recall, Michael Kiernan announced in June that he was resigning immediately as party chairman due to health reasons.  He had a tumor on his salivary gland.  That tumor was removed in a four-hour-long surgery performed last Thursday at University of Iowa hospitals in Iowa City. 

Kiernan now faces what his wife describes as an “extended” recovery period, but it appears the surgery was a success.  The surgeon — Dr. Jerry Funk — “got the tumor out” and it appears there was no damage to a facial nerve that could have been damaged in the procedure.

The Kiernans are at home in Des Moines now.   “We’ll hopefully have a better fall than we did a spring and summer,” Erin Kiernan said during our conversation.  “…It’s the best possible outcome.”