https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/john-fetterman-s-wife-gisele-says-family-forced-to-flee-to-canada-to-avoid-media-circus-over-depression/ar-AA17YtL3?ocid
The family of Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman described how they fled to Canada to escape a “media circus” over his "severe" clinical depression.
Mr Fetterman, a Democrat who won his first term last year while still recovering from a stroke that nearly killed him, checked himself into the Walter Reed Medical Center near Washington DC earlier this month.
Now his wife Giselle Barreto Fetterman has said that media attention pushed her to take the couple's children and drive north into Canada for an impromptu holiday.
"I am not really sure how to navigate this journey but am figuring it out slowly," Ms Fetterman tweeted on Friday.
"One week ago today when the news dropped, the kids were off from school and media trucks circled our home. I did the first thing I could think of – pack them in the car and drive.
"We talked about lots of hard things, and how we will all have to face hard things. About the need to be gentle, with all and with ourselves.
"We did some scary things but we did them together. We ziplined over Niagara Falls and [our son] August got stuck. We talked about flexibility and the need to always have an open heart and an open mind.
"We also talked about how joy and fun can and must still exist, even when someone we love is in pain. And tomorrow? Who knows. Will try all over again."
Aides have said that Mr Fetterman may remain in hospital for weeks, suggesting that his depression may have been stoked by "negative experiences" during his election campaign.
Mr Fetterman faced numerous attacks from Republican politicians and pundits claiming that his stroke had left him without the mental fitness to fill the post, sometimes in vicious terms.
His primary care doctor said that he has no actual "cognitive deficits", but suffers from auditory processing problems that mean he often needs captions to understand other people's speech.
The controversy continued after his victory, with conservatives accusing him of deceiving voters as to the extent of his illness while disability advocates argued that he was being unfairly stigmatised for needing accommodations that are often required by law in US workplaces.