Governor Phil Bredesen made his first public appearance in two weeks today, hosting a press conference at the State Capitol together with his personal physician, Dr. Karl VanDevender.
Quoting the old Mark Twain line as he began -- "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated" -- Bredesen said he is now returning to "limited duty" as he recovers from what was apparently a tick-borne disease, but he will "take it a little bit easy for the next few days."
VanDevender said Bredesen began feeling ill on August 6 while visiting Missoula, Montana to perform a wedding for a former staff member. He tried to shake off the illness on his own but finally went to see VanDevender a week later.
Bredesen said that continued pain behind his eyes and and in the muscles in his back led him to visit VanDevender on the morning of Monday, August 14. VanDevender said that Bredesen was admitted to Centennial Medical Center at approximately 8 pm later that day in order to begin tests and blood work to determine the cause of the illness.
According to VanDevender, the tests determined that it was most likely a tick-borne disease.
Bredesen went on to spend four nights in a Nashville hospital and then traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for outpatient evaluation before returning home late last week. There, Bredesen was treated by Dr. Taylor Hayes, who VanDevender says was a former colleague at Vanderbilt.
VanDevender noted that 70 percent of tick-borne illnesses are never diagnosed in any further detail, so it was no great surprise that serological tests for everything from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever to Brucellosis turned out negative.
The physician found it "very comforting" that the Mayo Clinic's doctors could not identify any specific cause for Bredesen's symptoms. "There's no reason to think that there's something else lurking there," he added.
"There will be no physical consequences at all, long term," from the illness, VanDevender said.
Bredesen noted that he will be "taking it slower" this week upon the advice of his doctors and will be absent from the Capitol on Friday in advance of his son Ben's wedding this weekend.
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