U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office on Monday released a public update on his condition following his June fall and hospitalization, saying he continues to undergo intensive rehabilitation and will miss this weekend’s Fancy Farm Picnic.
The July 27 statement comes about two weeks after McConnell and the Office of the Attending Physician provided their first detailed update on his recovery following weeks of limited public information about his condition.
In Monday’s statement, McConnell said he is continuing physical therapy and rehabilitation but has not yet been able to resume his normal schedule.
“I’m still working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders,” McConnell said in a release. “Unfortunately, that means I won’t be able to make it to Fancy Farm, Kentucky this Saturday.”
McConnell said he regretted missing the annual political gathering, calling it a tradition he has attended for more than four decades.
“There’s no place I’d rather be on the first Saturday in August than with the good people of western Kentucky, feasting on pork and mutton,” his statement reads. “When I first attended forty-two years ago, Fancy Farm was a pretty lonely place to be a Republican. But, my, how times have changed.”
The Office of the Attending Physician said McConnell continues to recover from the June fall and remains in a rehabilitation facility. According to the statement, physicians meet with him daily and he participates in multiple physical therapy sessions each day aimed at rebuilding strength and reducing the risk of future falls.
“OAP physicians visit with the Senator every day, discussing all aspects of his rehabilitation care,” the OAP office said in the release. “Since his discharge from hospital care, he has maintained a strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, including multiple sessions a day designed to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls.”
The physician’s office said the lingering effects of childhood polio continue to be “a significant factor” in McConnell’s mobility and that he has not yet been medically cleared to leave the rehabilitation facility and return to the office.
McConnell, 84, has been away from the Senate since the June incident. His first public statement about the fall came July 12, when he disclosed that he had been briefly unconscious after the accident and later developed a mild case of pneumonia but had not suffered a stroke, heart attack, or broken bones.
