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My stroke was like Fetterman’s. It was just a hiccup in a successful career. [1]
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Date: 2022-10-31
He was the 1st person to fire a javelin missile.
At 41 years of age, my husband had the same type of stroke that John Fetterman had. Here are his thoughts on Fetterman’s speedy recovery:
“I keep thinking about John Fetterman’s “mistake” when he welcomed the audience in his debate against Dr. Oz.
He said, “Good night”.
Of course, that means many people made fun of him for that. I didn’t. When I had my stroke, also caused by a heart arrhythmia, I had a very similar experience as I recovered. I mixed up some words also. Stroke survivors sometimes do that.
I remember the first time doing a power point presentation, five months after my stroke. Even when I wrote the text that I was now speaking aloud, I still mixed up the words “mechanical” with “majority”. Of course, everybody laughed (most of my audience were not aware of the stroke).
In John’s case, because of the quirks of the English language, the words “Evening” and “Night” are almost the same thing. For instance, if you ask, “is 8pm evening, or is 8pm nighttime”, you will have a lot of different answers. You put in the modifier of “good”, and it all changes – because of usage.
When people are recovering from a stroke, like us, it is easy to interchange the words evening with night. That’s all that is.
It is a little bit like learning a foreign language. If a German speaking person messed up “good night” with “good evening”, you would give him a pass. We all knew what he meant.
That is NOT a function of intelligence, nor is it a sign that he is “losing it”. Fetterman’s brain is just re-sorting language so that his brain can choose the appropriate word.
Sure, John’s language is struggling a bit here and there. Before my stroke, I was designing and evaluating guided missiles. That missile ended up called “Javelin” (yeah – that Javelin… the first Trump impeachment Javelin. The Javelin missile that the Ukrainian military is using to kick Russia’s ass). Months AFTER my stroke, for another 15 years of my career, I was on the team developing and making the infrared cameras and lasers for targeting precision.
With good therapists (like the ones Fetterman has), I learned the techniques, so that I can express myself – the same techniques that Fetterman is learning and employing now.
My stroke was a hiccup. I went on to continue with a very successful engineering career.
I can see that John Fetterman’s hiccup has nothing to do with his abilities. His already strong recovery has everything to do with his will to fight back.
I would just like to ask everybody to give John Fetterman grace as he sorts everything out for now. He will be a heck of a Senator.”
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