Following the stroke that nearly killed him last year, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has been left with “serious mental health” issues. The former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor was left with hearing and other cognitive issues after suffering a stroke in May last year, just before the Keystone State’s Democratic Senate primary.
The New York Times reported that Fetterman often cannot understand the words that others are saying to him. And for everything that he does, he has to use live audio-to-text transcription as
However, when he is under any kind of stress, Fetterman’s struggles are significantly worse, the report added.
The report said that in trying to understand what other people are saying is like “trying to make out the muffled voice of the teacher in the ‘Peanuts’ cartoon, whose words could never be deciphered,” as Fetterman has indicated when he’s under stress.
After feeling lightheaded at a Democrat Senate retreat, the report comes following Fetterman’s hospitalization this week. But doctors said that he did not have another stroke and that they were checking for signs of seizures, as Fetterman’s staff claimed.
Fetterman has “had to come to terms with the fact that he may have set himself back permanently by not taking the recommended amount of rest during the campaign,” as the report noted that the stroke last year has taken a “very real psychological toll” on him.
Claiming that medical tests from his most recent health episode came back negative, Fetterman’s campaign released a statement Friday evening.
The statement said, “A few minutes ago, Senator John Fetterman was discharged from The George Washington University Hospital, in addition to the CT, CTA, and MRI tests ruling out a stroke, his EEG test results came back normal, with no evidence of seizures.”
The statement added, “John is looking forward to spending some time with his family and returning to the Senate on Monday.”
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