Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is struggling with auditory processing issues during his most recent hospitalization and as he continues to recover from a stroke he suffered last year.
According to The New York Times, Fetterman says he sometimes hears voices as if they are muffled like the teacher from the “Peanuts” animated specials.
Annie Karni, writing for the Times, said Fetterman’s “most evident disability is a neurological condition that impairs his hearing.”
“Mr. Fetterman suffers from auditory processing issues, forcing him to rely primarily on a tablet to transcribe what is being said to him,” Karni reported. “The hearing issues are inconsistent; they often get worse when he is in a stressful or unfamiliar situation.
“When it’s bad, Mr. Fetterman has described it as trying to make out the muffled voice of the teacher in the ‘Peanuts’ cartoon, whose words could never be deciphered.”
Fetterman was hospitalized on Wednesday after he complained of feeling lightheaded.
Joe Calvello, Fetterman’s communications director, tweeted that the senator went in for an MRI and showed no signs of another stroke.
NEWS: About an hour ago Sen. Fetterman received the results of his MRI. According to John's doctors at The George Washington University Hospital, the results of the MRI, along with the results of all of the other tests the doctors ran, rule out a new stroke.
— Joe Calvello (@the_vello) February 9, 2023
Fetterman was present for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.
CSPAN cut to John Fetterman when Joe Biden started talking about what you would do if your spouse had a serious medical problem lmfao pic.twitter.com/b8qefWHlkh
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 8, 2023
The now-senator suffered a stroke last May just days before Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary and received a pacemaker and defibrillator.
He ran away with the primary and later won a narrow victory over GOP Senate nominee Mehmet Oz in November.
Fetterman’s communication issues were evident during the race’s only debate as he struggled to process words and information with the help of closed captioning technology.
Early voting in Pennsylvania was well underway at the time of the debate.
Story cited here.
