Brazil’s Lula says he is doing well after brain bleed surgery

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been released from hospital after undergoing emergency surgery for a bleeding in the brain. The doctors said.

The 79-year-old appeared with his medical team at a press conference at Sao Paulo’s Cirio-Libanes Hospital.

He said, “There is no interview here, it is just a session of saying thanks. First of all, thanks have to be given to God, who has taken care of me in a very generous way.”

Lula was taken to hospital on Monday after complaining of a severe headache.

Doctors performed a craniotomy on the president, a procedure in which part of the bone is surgically removed from the skull to treat bleeding and relieve pressure. The bone is then replaced.

The bleeding in the brain, or intracranial hemorrhage, was caused by a head injury he suffered when he fell in his bathroom at the Presidential Residence in October, according to a statement from the hospital.

“Thank you very much for the prayers,” Lula said Sunday. “And those who have only hatred in their hearts have been forgiven. Here I am, alive, whole and with more desire to work.”

On Tuesday, doctors said that the President’s condition is stable after the surgery and he is conscious.

He said Lula was “lucent” and talking to medical staff.

He also stressed that he had not suffered any brain injury and was not suffering any after effects from the surgery.

Asked when he would return to the capital, doctors said that if all went well, they expected Lula to return to Brasília “next week”.

While Lula was in the hospital, Vice President Geraldo Alcmin fulfilled some of the president’s commitments.

Doctors said the bleeding was caused by Lula’s fall in October.

He said it’s not unusual for problems from a head injury to surface “months later.”

Lula slipped in the bathroom of the Alvorada Palace on 19 October and hit the back of his head. On Sunday, he told that he was sitting and cutting his toe nails at that time.

He got five stitches. On the advice of his doctors, the President canceled his planned trip to Russia for the summit of BRICS countries.

He returned to full duty after a few days.

Lula has been in power since defeating incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by a narrow margin in a tight contest in January last year.

During the election campaign, he often joked that he had “the energy of a 30-year-old”.

Additional reporting by Malu Cursino