Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has been left with “serious mental health” issues and often cannot understand the words that others are saying to him following the stroke that nearly killed him last year.
The New York Times reported that Fetterman has to use live audio-to-text transcription for everything that he does.
The report said that Fetterman’s struggles are significantly worse when he is under any kind of stress.
Fetterman has indicated that when he’s under stress, 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,” the report said.
The report comes following Fetterman’s hospitalization this week after feeling lightheaded at a Democrat Senate retreat.
Fetterman’s staff claimed that doctors said that he did not have another stroke and that they were checking for signs of seizures.
The report noted that the stroke last year has taken a “very real psychological toll” on him and that he 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.”
Fetterman’s campaign released a statement Friday evening claiming that medical tests from his most recent health episode came back negative.
“A few minutes ago, Senator John Fetterman was discharged from The George Washington University Hospital,” the statement said. “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.”
“John is looking forward to spending some time with his family and returning to the Senate on Monday,” the statement added.
