Sen. Albert Hale, D-2, who was in and out of a Boston hospital for several weeks, resumed work just in time for the budget vote June 18.
Hale voted “yes” on the $10.6 billion budget accord reached after weeks of negotiation among Legislative leaders.
The 57-year-old lawmaker returned to the floor and thanked his colleagues for their prayers and well wishes.
Although he was absent for about three weeks, Hale said he didn’t think he missed much since leaders were in the thick of the budget talks when he was at the hospital.
Hale recounted how he felt a terrible headache while in a restaurant in Boston late in May. His daughter April said her father had gone to the restroom to splash water on his face and got very ill afterward.
The senator, a former president of the Navajo Nation, was taken to the hospital, where doctors determined there was a blood clot in his brain.
Hale underwent several tests — CAT scans, angiograms, MRIs — but physicians couldn’t locate the source of the bleeding. Initial tests had shown no trace of aneurysm or vessel rupture.
Doctors told him several times not to fly, Hale said. In the end, physicians couldn’t find anything wrong.
“I’m feeling great,” he told the Arizona Capitol Times.
Hale returned to Arizona early in June and spent several days resting, as advised by doctors. They also told him to refrain from lifting heavy objects and to keep his blood pressure as low as possible.
All while he was in Boston he kept in touch with his office in Phoenix and learned what was happening in the Senate, the senator said.