Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) was discharged from the hospital Friday after suffering a stroke last week and expects to be absent from the Senate for several weeks, according to his office.
“Last Saturday afternoon, I felt something was not right with my body and called 9-1-1 out of an abundance of caution, and I’m glad I did,” Murphy said in as statement Friday. “I was diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.”
Murphy, 53, said he plans to spend several weeks at a rehabilitation center before returning to the Senate. His staff continues to serve his constituents, he said.
Jose Suarez, the chief of neurosciences critical care at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, which treated Murphy, said he suffered “a small hemorrhagic stroke.”
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez said in statement shared by Murphy’s office.
The Senate is set to return to Washington on Monday after a five-week break for the midterm elections. The chamber is scheduled to be in session for five more weeks before the end of the year.
Murphy is one of several senators who have suffered strokes in recent years. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) had a minor stroke in 2022 when he was 63 and returned to work weeks later. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico) suffered a stroke the same year at age 49 and came back the following month.
Former senator Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) was away from the Senate for much longer after he had a serious stroke in 2012 at age 52. He returned after nearly a year of rehabilitation and continued serving until he lost his reelection bid in 2016.
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