King Juan Carlos of Spain has returned home from hospital after having surgery on his right knee last week.
As he left the private Sanitas La Moraleja University Clinic yesterday, he was in good spirits and joked to the media, “I will not be able to run 100 metres, but I will be able to walk better.” He will continue to recover at home at Zarzuela Palace after spending the past four days in hospital.
The former monarch, who had been needing assistance from a cane to walk, had the procedure on Saturday, 7 April at the private clinic in the afternoon in Madrid. This was the 15th surgery he had undergone with the first being on his appendix when he was a child.
The hospital said the 90-minute surgery was successful saying it “has been developed with total normality and the result has been fully satisfactory.” A specialist in Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology oversaw the procedure.
The 80-year-old father of King Felipe, Infanta Elena and Infanta Cristina went under the knife for “greater mobility and stability”, and the artificial prosthesis placed in his right knee in 2011 was replaced with “a state-of-the-art prosthesis.”
He was later visited in hospital by his wife, Queen Sofía; son, King Felipe; and daughter-in-law, Queen Letizia. The family returned on Sunday with two of Juan Carlos’s granddaughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía in tow.
King Juan Carlos had to be placed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for 24 hours post surgery as a precaution for what was called “postoperative control.”
The King’s last public appearance was at a commemorative mass at the beginning of last week in memory of his father Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona at the Basilica of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. At the moment, Juan Carlos does not have any scheduled engagements on the Casa Real calendar.