Keillor: Minor stroke a reminder of mortality

Midday's Gary Eichten and Garrison Keillor
Midday's Gary Eichten talks with Garrison Keillor during MPR Day at the Minnesota State Fair on Friday, September 4, 2009.
MPR Photo/Steve Mullis

Humorist and author Garrison Keillor writes that a minor stroke he suffered last week left him "essentially unscathed, though touched by mortality."

Keillor, 67, drove himself to a St. Paul hospital after feeling ill, then was taken to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He spent four nights at Saint Marys Hospital before being released last Friday.

In a column for Salon.com, which will be his syndicated newspaper column this weekend, Keillor writes that when he left Saint Marys, "a neurologist shook my hand and said: 'I hope you know how lucky you are.'"

The host of public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion" ends his column with a plea for national health reform.

He's scheduled to begin a new season of his show on Sept. 26 from St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater.

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