Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was released from a Sao Paulo hospital on Sunday after undergoing emergency surgery to treat intracranial bleeding.
“I am here in one piece… returning home in peace,” the 79-year-old leftist leader said in a surprise appearance at a press conference attended by his medical team at the hospital Sirio-Libanes.
Later, while leaving the hospital, he smiled and waved at the journalists.
Lula underwent successful surgery on Tuesday, in which doctors drilled a hole in his skull to relieve pressure caused by a head injury in October when he fell in the bathroom of his presidential residence in the capital, Brasília.
He underwent a follow-up operation on Thursday to reduce the risk of further bleeding in the affected area of the protective intracranial membrane.
Cardiologist Roberto Kalil told a news conference that the president could resume activities but he would have to do it gently for 15 days.
Lula will remain in Sao Paulo until Thursday, when he will undergo follow-up tests. Once approved, he will be able to return to Brasília and his normal routine.
“The only restriction is physical exercise,” Kalil said.
Another doctor, Ana Helena Germoglio, said Lula’s recovery had “exceeded expectations”.
Lula, known for his frenetic work pace, burst into the press conference on Sunday without warning and walked to the microphone without any assistance.
He addressed reporters wearing a fedora-style hat, which covered his operation scars, along with his wife Rosangela “Janza” da Silva.
Lula’s medical emergency began when he complained of a headache in Brasília last Monday.
“I felt like my steps were slowing down, my eyes were red and I felt very sleepy,” she said.
An MRI scan found bleeding between his brain and the dura mater membrane protecting it, prompting him to be immediately rushed to the country’s top medical facility – Hospital Sirio-Libanes – for surgery.
He said, “I confess that I was frightened by the increasing amount of fluid in my head. I was alarmed by the urgency of the request to go to the hospital.”
“I never thought I was going to die, but I’m scared, so I have to follow the rules,” Lula said. He said he would not go to the beach for the year-end holidays, as many Brazilians do. to do.
“I’m going home now,” he told reporters, “calm, confident that I’ve recovered and I just need to take care of myself.”
After the fall on 19 October, Lula told an official of his Workers’ Party that the accident was “serious”.
In the weeks that followed, the President abandoned planned foreign trips. But from mid-November he resumed his active schedule, hosting the G20 summit in Rio and attending the Mercosur summit in Uruguay.
The latest medical emergency adds to the list of health problems Lula has endured over the years, which includes treatment for throat cancer in 2011 and a hip replacement operation last year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
