The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvasaid this Friday that he is “firm and strong”, after the emergency surgery performed on Tuesday for a intracranial hemorrhagein a message on social networks accompanied by a video.
“I ask that you stay calm. I am firm and strong! (…) Soon I will be ready to return home and continue working”wrote the 79-year-old president, who was seen for the first time in images after the operation, smiling and walking through the corridors of the San Pablo hospital where he is admitted. “2025 is just around the corner and we have many meetings ahead of us in Brazil and around the world. Thank you for your love and for all the dedication of the medical team. The love I receive always keeps me going!”he added.
In the video, the president is seen with a bandage on his head, talking and laughing with his wife, Rosangela “Janja” da Silva, and neurosurgeon Marcos Stavale.
Lula da Silva spent this Friday at “semi-intensive care” at the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, according to what his doctors reported in a bulletin.
A source from the Brazilian presidency explained to the agency AFP that the “monitoring” of the president, who had been in intensive care since the surgery, “becomes at intervals” and is no longer under permanent control. “He will not leave the room he is in (ICU, intensive care unit), but continuous monitoring will be withdrawn by the evolution of the painting”, detailed the source.
Lula “remains lucid and oriented, he ate normally and took walks through the hallways,” the bulletin added.
The president of Brazil underwent successful surgery on Tuesday a bruise near the brain resulting from a blow suffered almost two months ago, when he fell in the bathroom of the presidential residence in Brasilia.
Two days later he underwent a new complementary intervention, a catheterization to minimize the risk of more bleeding in the future.
“(Lula) is neurologically perfect, he is optimal,” he reported on Thursday. the neurosurgeon Marcos Stavale, one of the doctors responsible for the procedure, in a press conference.
After his release this Friday from intensive care, The president is expected to leave the São Paulo hospital on Monday or Tuesday of next week and return to Brasilia.
Once in the capital, will need “relative rest for a few weeks”according to the doctors.
Lula was taken to the hospital in San Pablo on Monday night after experiencing headaches. Doctors detected an “intracranial hemorrhage,” a late consequence of the blow suffered almost two months ago.
On October 19, Lula fell in the bathroom of the official residence and injured the back of his head. He received stitches and regular evaluations for several weeks. The hemorrhage detected this week forced him to undergo emergency surgery early Tuesday morningto drain the bleeding and prevent the hematoma from compressing the brain.
Although he remains hospitalized, Lula “is permanently exercising the activity of the presidency of the Republic”said its Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, on Thursday.
Lula’s medical problem also put the question of succession on the Brazilian left back on the table, with no clear figures to replace him as an eventual candidate in the 2026 presidential elections.
Lula said in November that if there is no other candidate he will be “ready” to run, although he hopes that “it will not be necessary” and there will be a “great political renewal.”
(With information from AFP)
