Beau Biden, Delaware AG and Son of VP, Undergoes Tests

Beau Biden, the Delaware attorney general and the son of Vice President Joe Biden, is undergoing medical testing in Texas after being hospitalized last week for weakness and disorientation, his office said Monday night.

The younger Biden, who suffered a mild stroke in 2010, began experiencing the new symptoms last Wednesday night after driving to Indiana for a family vacation, said Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Justice.

Biden, 44, was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and traveled the next morning to Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia to consult with his doctor.

He was discharged and spent the weekend at home in Wilmington. Miller said Biden currently is undergoing testing in Houston to determine the cause of his symptoms.

The White House says the vice president, who had been at his home in Delaware for the past several days, accompanied his son to Houston. There was no word on how long Vice President Biden would remain in Texas.

Miller said Beau Biden spoke by telephone with Chief Deputy Attorney General Ian McConnel over the weekend, and had been in touch with his office Monday evening.

Officials with Biden's office said they had no comment beyond the prepared statement Monday, but that further information would be forthcoming.

Biden's Twitter account on Sunday posted a photo of him and his father sitting on a porch and smiling while sending a message of encouragement to a Delaware team that was in the Little League World Series.

This isn't the first health scare for the younger Biden, who became Delaware's attorney general in 2007. After suffering a mild stroke in May 2010, he spent a week in the Jefferson University hospital and more than a month recuperating at home.

``I was just a little off,'' Biden later explained to The Associated Press when asked about his stroke. ``My arm didn't feel right. I was able to move it, but I just wasn't myself.''

``Stroke was the farthest thing from my mind when I went in,'' Biden added then, saying he didn't know enough to be scared, or to reflect on the brain aneurysm that nearly killed his father in 1987 at age 45.

Beau Biden is the eldest son of Vice President Biden. After the 1972 accident that killed his wife and daughter and critically injured brothers Beau and Hunter Biden, the vice president devoted himself to caring for his two sons as a single father.

Beau Biden served a yearlong deployment to Iraq with his Army National Guard unit, returning stateside in 2009.

 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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