Fetterman and the Brain

On strokes, speech, and survival

Edited by Sam Thielman

Well, it finally happened. After two-plus years of doing everything possible to avoid it, I’ve come down with COVID — positive test, (mild) symptoms (so far?), the whole shebang. Sitting here in my home office, isolated from my family, has put me in a meditative sort of mood. Which is handy, since I owe you, my paying subscribers, an edition today.

I’d been meaning to write for a few weeks now about John Fetterman, the progressive Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, running against a Trump-backed reality TV personality. As you may have heard, just before running the table and carrying every one of the state’s counties in the primaries last month, Fetterman suffered a stroke, forcing him off the campaign trail. Questions have abounded since then — how bad are strokes generally, and how bad specifically was his? Why hasn’t he done any public events since?

I know little about Fetterman’s personal condition. But it happens that I know something about strokes. That’s because I had a stroke, similar to his, about two and half years ago.