US Senator Mitch McConnell on Sunday revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalisation, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about the Kentucky Republican’s health.
McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he has undergone a battery of tests as doctors try to determine what led to his fall. He explained the long silence about his condition by saying that “folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older”.
“Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct – I can’t help it,” he said.
“As much as it ‌frustrates me, this process takes time,” McConnell said in the statement, his first since he was hospitalised last month. “And on the advice of my doctors, I won’t be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet.”
He said the fall left him briefly unconscious. While hospitalised, ‌he developed pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics, according to a separate statement that McConnell’s office attributed to the attending doctor. ‌The doctor was not identified.
McConnell said he is now in a rehabilitation centre and will not be returning to the Senate “quite yet”. He said he continues to work with his staff on Senate business in the meantime.
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