Clinton, Karzai swap medical tales

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were overheard swapping medical stories during Karzai's visit to the State Department.

During a photo opportunity Thursday with Karzai, reporters overheard Clinton talking about "the testing, the MRIs, and the CAT scans, and all of those things" with the visiting Afghan leader in her office, CNN reported.

Reporters caught a snippet of the conversation before being escorted away:

"Dehydration is what happens to us very often," Karzai said.

Clinton said, "It does, doesn't it?"

"I get it very, very often," Karzai said. "I actually didn't notice it for years [until] last year -- early May when I continued to have fevers. And then the doctors found out that I was short on protein."

Clinton spent several weeks out of the office recently, at first for a stomach virus and dehydration. She then fell and hit her head, causing a concussion and doctors later discovered a blood clot in a vein between her skull and her brain, the State Department said. She was hospitalized for treatment of the clot and returned to work Monday.