Senator Tim Johnson Undergoes Brain Surgery

Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) suffered apparent stroke-like symptomes during a conference call yesterday. He was rushed to a hospital where tests ruled out a stroke or heart attack. yet the Senator underwent brain surgery and is in critcal condition.




My thoughts and prayers go out to the Senator and his family. His illness shows how tenuous our grip is on this earth. I hope the politicians can put aside the potential loss of the power shift recently gained in the Senate and keep their efforts concentrated on what is really important.

i wish the best for the Senator T Johnson,

the local talk radio, says they're still determining if he suffered a brain-stroke from a: clot, hemorrage/aneurism, or a ?TIA?

its said he has a 3 hour window for the best recovery chances,
he's critical now (after surgery)
i'd venture the world class hospital put some clamps on his bursting
aneurism that was leaking blood into his skull.

I'll start off by wishing the best for the Senator.

A side effect of his health, as stated above, is the balance of power in the Senate. If Johnson, a Democrat, is unable to come back to office, SD's governor will select someone to take his seat. Since the governor is Republican, it is a very high probability that a Republican will be appointed, giving the Republican's control of the Senate again.

It's amazing how quickly things can happen and how fragile things are. Whether its someone's health, or keeping the majority in the Senate.

I'll be watching this closely.

[edit on 14-12-2006 by rockieboy]

The latest from the news say it was an AVM, or arterial venus malformation, a congenital condition involving a cluster of blood vessels in the brain that are subject to rupture and intra-cranial bleeding. It doesn't appear to be something one would recover from quickly, or possibly ever completely, without substantial loss of function.

It seems likely at this point the Dems will lose their looming majority in the Senate as a result of this tragedy. The nature of the condition, timing of its manifestation, and the pivotal position held by Mr. Johnson all contribute to my concern their may be foul play involved in his predicament. I haven't heard anything about his predisposition to this condition or other contributing factors that may have increased his risk.

My thoughts and prayers are with him, his family, and their loved ones during this difficult time.

It can take months to recover from such an operation. I suspect this AVM will end the Senator's career.

Can anyone say "foul play"?

Somebody went to the Putin card.

Peace

tims a nice guy, i grew up in SD and ive met the man. he does a lot for the people of the state which goes to show how much people like him, SD is pretty much a red state. he's been in office since i was in Highschool as far as i can recall, though its possible im mistook on this detail (yes, mistook is a word...now anyway..shakespear made up words, so can i )

i hope the best for tim and while i dont pray a lot anymore ill make an exception in this case.

Sen. Reid just came out and said Mr. Johnson looks good, great even, and they are all praying for and expecting a full recovery. Maybe they caught it early enough to avoid serious brain damage.

This is Roves November surprise a month late people.

I was listening to NPR this morning. They were talking about this, and it seems that there is no legal provision to have the Senator removed from his post due to illness or disability. They cited cases of congressmen being absent for months or even years because of personal circumstances. Death, of course, is another matter.

So it will be interesting to see how the issue of ruling that the Senator is unable to resume his duties at some future time will be resolved. Who has that power?

IF he had an anurism and has survived this long then the odds are he will make it. Usually it kills outright. I have a friend that suffered one and is still with us and fine.

Be that as it may, it bugs me that the Republican governor could appoint a Republican to replace him. The people voted for him as a Democrat and that is what should be appointed to replace him should it come down to that and it should be required by law. The same should be true if it were the other way around as well. Also should someone be elected as party of one party and changes, they should be required to step down and run in a special election as what they changed to.

actually grover...we elected him becuase he's a good guy for the job. remember south dakota is heavily republican and yet until john thune defeated tom daschle both our senators and our one representative were democrats. matter of fact the ONLY reason that thune was able to beat daschle even by the narrow margin he did was that overall daschle forgot where he was from. for many years he served us well but got 'potomic fever' too bad and forgot about us.

IF tim, god forbid, has to abandon his office for health reasons, im VERY sure that the pressure on gov rounds will be incredible to replace him with a republican, (pressure from washington that is) but i have no doubt that whoever he appoints will be the best person for the job regardless of party. and i have a feeling that the people of south dakota as a whole will be ok with taht decision. sure there will be the hardcore party liners that will complain, no matter waht he does, but as a whole the majority of south dakotans will be happy with the gov's decision. he's done ok by us so far.

LOL i tend to vote republican in SD but id have NO problem with moving stephanie over from the house. wouldnt that piss some people off?

I understand what you are saying damocles...my point is that whomever is appointed should it come down to that, should reflect the desire of the people, not the whim (or pressure upon) a politican...if the people chose a democrat or republican then an effort should be made to abide by that choice and if it means a special election so be it. Like I said though, these type of strokes, if they don't kill or maim you right out odds are you gonna make it....my friend who had one was laid up for about 6 months but since....well he's in Africa now if that gives ya any clue.

i see your point, and honestly it would probably end up going to special election.

look what happened when janklow had to step down after his vehicular manslaughter case...we had a special election then another one a couple months later. but i dont know if its different for senators vs reps.

if i still lived in SD id have no problem either way. like i said, if gov rounds just arbitrarily picked someone, i think the people of the state would support him overall.

though if there were promises that thune could rise up like daschle did based on who rounds appointed...that could change the equation a bit lol

[edit on 14-12-2006 by Damocles]

Originally posted by Icarus Rising
The latest from the news say it was an AVM, or arterial venus malformation, a congenital condition involving a cluster of blood vessels in the brain that are subject to rupture and intra-cranial bleeding. It doesn't appear to be something one would recover from quickly, or possibly ever completely, without substantial loss of function.

i finally came across a report by NYT, they too report that the Senator suffered a conjenital arteriovenous malformation...

conjenital suggests that the malady was not an attack of any sort by opposition party/persons...the Sen. had this condition all thru his life
and it was just time for the tangling of blood vessels to bleed into his brain.........end of conspiracy! that are found in other threads on the event




but about his recovery or future,
the NYT report says the hosptal will remain alert for ~72 hrs for any further bleeding. ...his prognosis will not be certain for weeks, maybe months.

here's some things to reckon in looking forward as to Sen Johnsons' recovery.
mot likely the operation on his brain vessels used clamps to fix his blood vessels, & like the report says a majority of brain bleeding cases show no long term damage.
But, if clamps were used, there might be short or long term damage to the now blood-starved areas of the brain, & the displacement of the clamps themselves can interfere with the brain message centers.
in both cases, he well may have need of some therapies intended to stimulate a 're-wiring' in his brain.

It all depends on just what location & what areas of the brain the bleeding occured
~in my case it took ~2years for my stereo-scopic vision to return to some workable condition of a crisp & focused image with depth preception. imagine a kleidoscope pattern of everything you look at being two distinct images about 4" out of sync. being projected on your brains 'movie screen'. [sen johnson may want an eye patch for awhile]

~the sen. may have intense vertigo for months or years, If the clamps interfere with his balance & equilibrium...resulting in a 24/7 experience of having your world spinning around (recall when as a kid it was fun to spin in circles till you fell to the ground and the world kept spinning & your eyes tried to keep up?...it was fun then, because it was a short lived event)

~the sen. will keep a brain drain for days or weeks, until the brain fluid is clear and brainscans show no further vessels need clamped up from any new bleeding. Sen Johnson is now 59, younger than Arial Sharon was at his brain hemorrage event, but 10 years older than when i had mine...
He's got his life & sensibilities at least...i wouldn't think that his focus is on political office at this time,

but since life goes on, his counsel should request an immediate 6 month
leave-of-office, thats not too much to ask of his constituents in S.D.



[edit on 15-12-2006 by St Udio]

AVM? Interesting... I know someone who has an AVM. It's essentially a shunt between artery and vein before a capillary cluster, so blood doesn't make it into the capillaries. It occasionally bleeds and causes seizures. In this person, it was easily found during some type of scan in the early 90s, and confirmed with a PET scan a few years ago.

I would be curious to know that if this was indeed an AVM, was it a known condition?

And I think all those theorizing that this is an act by the GOP are thinking far too short-sighted if this was indeed an attack of some kind.

The conspiracy theorists on this one must be out of their heads (sorry). So their theory is that someone decided to give the senator a congenital condition when he was a baby just in case he ever grew up to be a democrat senator?



Please tell me that if you think this was some sort of plot or attack that you'll have called for a therapy appointment for yourself by close of day today.



And for jsobecky, if this guy doesn't resign but is never there to vote, it doesn't help the dems - except that they still would retain the committee chairs.

[edit on 12/15/2006 by centurion1211]

You have to admit control of the Senate at this juncture is crucial to any remaining control and influence the GOP will have over the political process in Washington for the next two years. I wouldn't put anything past Rove and Co. in their efforts to retain power in the Senate.

A congenital defect is the perfect scapegoat for this situation, from a CT perspective, the too-perfect alibi.

South Dakota borders Dick I-want-my-deciding-vote-back Cheney's home state of Wyoming, and has a history of Senators leaving office under duress.

At least they weren't out quail hunting when it happened.

a history of?

i remember a representative, who was a former gov. leaving after he got drunk and killed a motorcyclist...but having lived in south dakota for most of my life i guess i may have just be oblivious to the 'history of' our senators leaving


and other than we border wyoming, why would they pick a senator from south dakota, why not a state with more political clout?

no, im sorry but i have to disagree. tim just had a health condition.

Not making a case for it, just throwing the CT angle out there.

I thought it odd that after 9/11 Tom Daschle, one of the targets of the Anthrax Letters, just sort of disappeared from the national political scene. He seemed to be in a pretty solid position, maybe even getting ready to make a run at the WH.

What happened to him?