During his most recent hospitalization and as he continues to recuperate from a stroke he sustained last year, Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is battling auditory processing impairments.
According to The New York Times, Fetterman claims he occasionally hears muffled sounds similar to the instructor from the “Peanuts” cartoon episodes.
Annie Karni wrote in the Times that 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.”
Wednesday, Fetterman was hospitalized after complaining of feeling dizzy.
Joe Calvello, the director of communications for Senator Fetterman, tweeted that the senator underwent an MRI and revealed no evidence of a second 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
Tuesday, Fetterman attended President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech.
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
A pacemaker and defibrillator were implanted in the senator after he suffered a stroke in May, days before the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary.
In November, he defeated Mehmet Oz, the Republican contender for the Senate, by a razor-thin margin.
During the only debate, Fetterman struggled to understand words and information with the use of closed captioning technology, highlighting his communication challenges.
During the debate, early voting in Pennsylvania was well underway.