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What in the fresh hell, Pennsylvania?
Has the Motte discussed John Fetterman? If so, I missed it... I admit there are enough races I'm watching across the country that it is hard to keep track of them all. But in case you, too, have missed it, John Fetterman is the Democratic candidate for the seat of outgoing Senator Pat Toomey, one of 7 Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment circus. Seven days before winning the Primary, John Fetterman had a stroke.
I am not a medical doctor. For all I know, Fetterman will make a full recovery, eventually. But as of right now, the guy is one step above monosyllabic. Which made tonight's debate absolutely excruciating to watch. Over the course of the night, PredictIt shifted ten cents in favor of Fetterman's opponent,
the Wizard ofMehmet Oz. And yet most media accounts of the debate are steadfastly reporting only the substance, such as it was. No surprise--the media has been carrying water for Fetterman for weeks. But like... really? You can't report a single sentence saying, "Fetterman was clearly not up to the task." Watching people hit Twitter to unironically praise him for "doing really well, for a stroke victim!" is shocking. The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind. On the flip side, #Festerman was briefly trending on Twitter before (I presume) someone elbowed their censors.Of course, we can trust our outspoken President to just tell it like it is. Perhaps President Biden understands better than anyone, given the possibility that he, too, might simply be functioning as a sock puppet for the Democratic establishment. The counterargument that criticizing Fetterman's cognition is some kind of "ableism" is just hollow. This is not a man who can do the job of Senator, at least not right now, and to pretend otherwise just seems exploitative to me. (And calling that a "bad faith" argument seems willfully ignorant. The man can barely speak, that's much more than an "auditory processing" problem.)
Of course, voting has been open for a month in Pennsylvania, and the state has already declared its intention to turn a blind eye to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling as it counts undated ballots. So in addition to potentially electing someone with the mental faculties of a young child to high federal office, Pennsylvania is also setting up a judicial crisis for its election process.
And all because Oz is, well, a Trumpist. If this is what midterms look like, 2024 is going to be... just something else. I can't even imagine. It's simply too much.
My understanding of strokes, through some limited personal contacts, is that once the damage is done there is very little that can be undone. Successful recovery is measured in terms of activities of daily living from relearning/learning anew with different parts of the brain, not getting back to one's old self. It's literal brain cell death which is why so much of the medical emphasis is on identifying a stroke happening and quickly responding to reduce how many brain cells die from lack of blood flow.
Am neurologist, on iPad at work and don’t want to log in via their Wi-Fi for obvious reasons. Typing is laborious so going to type in shorthand. Technically right but missing tons of data. Too much info missing to give full prognosis but I think he’d do fine based on public info.
Stroke in his case = clot in brain vessel. He had a thrombectomy so he had the clot removed by an interventionalist. No idea how much brain tissue was permanently irreversibly injured. Could be pretty minimal based on the limited videos I saw.
Because they did thrombectomy, we know it was a large vessel. If a large vessel clot completes, he’d have a facial droop and right arm plegia in addition to a LOT more language issues. He seems down to a mild brocas aphasia. Brocas ranges from mute to stumbling words. He’s already on the pretty mild side of a brocas.
If I saw him in clinic, prognosis for recovery would be great. Could have some persisting deficits. A lot would depend on the extent of injury that we don’t know. I’d say the most important factor is already-demonstrated recovery and difference from worst case scenario, complete loss of language and other L MCA stroke symptoms mentioned above.
Recovery in stroke is front loaded. Would make strides in months and then not much further after. He could sit at what we see for life. He could basically return entirely to normal. Would be totally unsurprised if he’s back at pre stroke baseline in 3 months.
Also, even if there’s irreversible brain loss, in small cortical strokes, there’s always a lot of potential for recovery from neuroplasticity from surrounding brain tissue remodeling language networks. Especially in younger patients.
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My mother had a stroke (actually a series of strokes) and has regained all of her speech and movement, just a couple of months later. She has some very minor short term memory issues but other than that you couldn't tell she had it at all. It really depends on exactly how much damage was done and where.
As a PSA make sure if you are on meds for high blood pressure you are getting your BP checked regularly, meds that were working can become ineffective and sometimes there can be very few warning signs until it is too late.
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That is an awfully broad claim. Surely much depends on the severity of the stroke and the particular kind of stroke, as well as other factors. FWIW, Fetterman was released from the hospital nine days after his stroke, which seems on the short side, but perhaps not nowadays.
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That is... quite horrifying and it sounds like he shouldn't be even running for election and should instead be trying to recover as much as possible before trying to handle the stresses of political decision-making.
I'm sure there would be enough people who are ready and willing to take the stresses of political decision-making on themselves for him if he's elected.
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This is solely based on second hand impressions from watching interviews and the like, but his wife gives off a serious Lady Macbeth/Hillary Clinton vibe. Cynically, I would guess that she's the real "power behind the throne" / one making the push here.
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One of his current ads sort of obliquely addresses the stroke by talking about how nice it is that he got to spend time recovering with his family and how everyone should have the same opportunity... so send me to Washington to leave my family and do high stress, literal fucking life-or-death negotiations for the next six years! This campaign is the most amazing dumpster fire that I can remember.
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