Arroyo, wearing a halo vest or brace, a contraption with a ring to hold the head and immobilize the neck and cervical spine, walked out of the hospital at around 9:30 p.m. and was fetched by her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo.
Dr. Juliet Gopez-Cervantes, Arroyo’s attending physician, said they gave Arroyo the go signal to rest and continue recovering at home as she had no infection or any post-surgical complications.
Arroyo is “improving remarkably,” is able to speak and walk upon her discharge, according to Cervantes, who added this was a good sign that Arroyo’s body was responding well to the surgery and the medication.
“With the day-to-day evaluation and progress that she has been showing, there is no more need for her to stay longer in the hospital. Being confined in the hospital for too long is not only depressing, she is also exposed to all kinds of infections,” she said.
The former president, who now represents the second district of Pampanga in the House of Representatives, was advised, however, not to entertain visitors even when she’s at home, the doctor said.
Cervantes added that that no timeframe was given to Arroyo as to when she could continue her work in Congress. “We would have to evaluate that first through a series of CT scans that we will be conducting on her.”
Apart from antibiotics, Arroyo was also being given calcium supplements to strengthen her bones, as well as muscle relaxants for her neck spasms.
Cervantes said they would continue to coordinate with Arroyo’s nurses at home in monitoring her condition.
The St. Luke’s medical team will visit Arroyo at her residence at La Vista, Quezon City, on September 6 to evaluate her progress before she returns to the hospital for another CT scan on September 14, Cervantes added.
“The CT scan taken days ago showed the implants are in place. The same test will be done again two weeks from now to check if there is bone growth and fusion and to make sure that the implants have not moved,” she said.
Arroyo went through a third operation on August 24 after doctors discovered that the titanium implant previously placed on her spine had been dislodged because of an “inherent bone problem” that her doctors apparently did not detect before the initial procedure.
The third surgery – the second was to remove the implant gone awry –involved the reconstruction of the anterior part of Arroyo’s cervical spine using a titanium mesh cage with a bone graft that was harvested from her pelvic bone.
“The titanium mesh cage filled with bone graft was inserted as a strut anteriorly in her cervical vertebrae and was stabilized further with kick plates,” Dr. Mario Ver, the orthopedic surgeon in Arroyo’s team of doctors had explained.
Bone growth from the mesh would fuse the vertebrae in Arroyo’s cervical spine, allowing the doctors to remove the halo vest attached to her neck, head and shoulders.
The halo vest is to ensure that Arroyo’s cervical spine is immobilized to help speed up the growth of bones in the damaged area, the doctor added, saying they will determine in the coming weeks if the halo vest can be replaced with a less rigid neck brace.
Arroyo’s first surgery was done on July 29 at the same hospital during which titanium implants and bone substitute were used to rebuild her spine.
She had to undergo a “revision” surgery on August 10 after it was found that the implants connecting four vertebrae in Arroyo’s spine had been dislodged by what doctors initially thought was an infection.
The doctors later said the problem was traced to Arroyo’s poor bone quality caused by hypoparathyroidism, an endocrine disorder in which the parathyroid glands in the neck do not produce enough parathyroid hormone (PTH) that helps control calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D levels in the blood and bone.
During the medical briefing on Saturday, Ver also presented a drawing of the titanium mesh and titanium plates attached to Arroyo’s cervical spine.
Cervantes said it was she and the hospital’s vice president for customer affairs, Marilen Lagniton, and not the Arroyo family, who decided to inform the media on Saturday about Arroyo’s discharge the night before.
She said the discharge was scheduled for Saturday morning, but Arroyo insisted on going home Friday night.
“We thought it would be difficult to gather the members of the media since it was already late at night when the former President decided to leave the hospital. Had she opted to leave in the morning we could have informed you right away,” Cervantes told reporters.