Sen. Biden Back on Job After Brain Operation in Feb.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., who underwent brain surgery seven months ago, returned to the Senate today and told his cheering staff, “I’m more happy to be back than you can imagine.”

Biden, 45, looking tanned and fit, was surprised by his staff with a welcome-back party in his private office.

He underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm Feb. 12 and then had a second operation for another, smaller aneurysm May 3.

Looking back over the year, Biden, from Delaware, said: “I hope that I’m a little wiser. I think I have a somewhat more serene outlook--not a sense of urgency.”

“I thought a lot about whether I wanted to stay in this business,” Biden said of his lengthy recuperation. “I like what I do. . . . It made me eager to get back to do my job.”

Biden, looking back on his failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, said his withdrawal from the race “saved my life. My doctors told me the prospects of my still being alive if I stayed in the presidential race were very remote.”

“There is no way I would have been the candidate,” Biden said. “I either would have died or been in the hospital.”