Washington DC - After a six-week stint in hospital, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is ready to "start making up any lost time," he said in a new interview.

"My aspiration is to take my son to the restaurant that we were supposed to go during his birthday but couldn’t because I had checked myself in for depression," Fetterman said in an interview with CBS News aired on Sunday. "And being the kind of dad, the kind of husband and the kind of senator that Pennsylvania deserves."

The comments were recorded two days ahead of Fetterman's release from Walter Reed medical center on Friday, where the senator had checked himself in in February for clinical depression.

The freshman congressman was elected to his first term in November 2022 after winning out against Republican contender Dr. Mehmet Oz.

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He suffered a life-threatening stroke during his campaign, which medical experts say could have had an impact on his depression.

Fetterman said that after the November election, he began to stop eating and spending as much time with his family. During his swearing in on January 3, colleagues described the new senator as seeming "lost."

"And the whole thing about depression is, is that objectively, you may have won, but depression can absolutely convince you that you actually lost," Fetterman said in the interview on Sunday. "And that’s exactly what happened. And that was the start of a downward spiral."

Now, when CBS anchor Jane Pauley pointed out he "seem[ed] hopeful" during the interview, he replied, "For the first time, yeah. It's a strange feeling for me to have."

Fetterman's office says he is planning to return to Congress when the Senate recommences its work on April 17.