Diego Maradona has been discharged from the Olivos clinic over a week after he underwent brain surgery to treat bleeding in the brain. The Argentina football icon was taken from the Buenos Aires hospital on Wednesday, November 11, to a private home where he will continue to receive treatment as an outpatient.
Only close family and friends are permitted to visit him during his recovery period according to his doctor and neurosurgeon, Leopoldo Luque.
Recall that the football icon who is the head coach of an Argentine football club, Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata made his last public appearance during a match involving his team but couldn’t finish the match because of ill-health. This happened after celebrating his 60th birthday on October 30, 2020.
The two-time Fifa World Cup winner was then taken to a hospital in La Plata, a town close to the country’s capital, Buenos Aires, where he was diagnosed with subdural hematoma (A pool of blood between the brain and its outermost covering).
Immediately it was discovered that the football legend had this illness, he was operated upon on November 3 and the operation went successfully, according to his doctor that oversaw the operation.
🏥 "He is awake and coping very well."
— SPORF (@Sporf) November 4, 2020
🙏 Diego Maradona's doctor confirms his surgery for bleeding on the brain was successful. pic.twitter.com/44f5ic6HI5
He was then taken to a recovery clinic in Buenos Aires where the doctor finally cleared him to be discharged on November 11. Before he was discharged on Wednesday around 6 pm local time in Argentina (GMT/4 pm ET), his lawyer, Matias Morla, said “Diego is together, Diego is solid.”
He then went on to advise Maradona‘s family to be united and give the football legend rest of mind so that he can recover faster.
“It could have taken his life,” the lawyer said. “What he misses now is the union of his family, being surrounded by health professionals.
“The situation here is clear – being at peace with the relatives. They have to respect each other, coordinate the visits among themselves because in this case, Diego has to recover. One has to give him peace and give him unity.”
One of the major causes of Subdural Hematoma is when a person falls with his head but Maradona told his doctor that he can’t remember ever failing with his head. It is also suspected that the illness could be caused by his negative lifestyle of taking hard-drugs and later switching to excessive intake of alcohol.
Dr. Alfredo Cahe, a doctor who has been working with Diego Maradona for over ten years, told TyC Sports that if the football legend can stop his excessive intake of alcohol which he uses to replace his former habit of drug abuse, he will recover faster from his current health challenges.
He said: “The whole family agrees, his daughters, his siblings, that Diego is uncontrollable like this and is going to get worse and worse.
“Diego is in a similar state to when I took him to Cuba.
“Now we have to dry Diego out and then we will see. We are in the phase of complete drying out. Alcohol is a drug, he swapped one for another.
“I remember in past years it wasn’t just drugs that Diego consumed, alcohol also formed one of the cornerstones of Diego’s addiction. But I don’t want to talk about the past, but rather how we proceed now.
“If Diego realizes his condition and starts to recover, it will be a different story.”
