Hockey legend Gordie Howe is feeling better and is able to walk again after undergoing outpatient surgery last month to help relieve severe pain stemming from spinal stenosis.
“He had a very bad summer,” Gordie’s son Mark Howe told the Detroit Free Press over the weekend. “Weekly, I would send updates to my brothers and sister and my dad’s friends, let them know. It was pretty discouraging, pretty disheartening. If the surgery didn’t help, and he didn’t respond to it, then…it wasn’t good. There wasn’t anything good going to come out of it.”
More NHL on Sportsnet:
Subscribe: Rogers GameCentre Live
Rogers Hometown Hockey | Broadcast Schedule
Gordie, 86, suffers from dementia, recently had a seizure and has had mini strokes. However, Mark, a Hall of Fame defenceman and a current scout with the Detroit Red Wings, said he has seen an improvement in his father since the surgery.
“I talked to him about a week ago, and he’s got his sense of humour back, his personality back, so I’m pretty encouraged by that.
“There are days he’s totally out of it mentally, and then he’d start getting back into it. Things are progressively getting worse for him, but I can live with that, that’s part of life.”
Gordie played 25 seasons with the Red Wings and one with the Hartford Whalers in an NHL career that spanned five decades. The Floral, Sask., native ranks second in NHL history in goals and third in points. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972.
