Let’s ask state Rep. Robert E. Belfanti Jr., who returned to the House floor for the first time this week since being diagnosed with acute pneumonia in February. The Northumberland County Democrat, at one point, had slipped into a coma for a week and was reportedly near death. On his first day back, Wednesday, Belfanti told his colleagues: “I really did miss you all and I do appreciate and my family appreciates your outpouring of understanding while I was on the road to a six-foot plot as opposed to getting back here. I can say that waking up and coming here ranks slightly over being in a box.”

Slightly, he says.