Gordie Howe spent the days leading up to another birthday on a Texas lake fishing with his sons, much like they did at their place on Bear Lake in Northern Michigan when the boys were kids and Howe was starring for the Detroit Red Wings.
"It was on a private lake about an hour from my sister Cathy's place in Lubbock, our own private Idaho," son Murray Howe said in a telephone interview Monday. "It was really wonderful seeing my dad reel in a couple of 10-pound catfish."
On Tuesday, Howe turns 87 -- a birthday his children never dreamed they'd celebrate before their gravely ill father underwent stem-cell therapy in Mexico in early December after suffering a stroke. And what the family describes as "truly miraculous" continues.
"Overall, he's doing very, very well," said Murray, a Toledo, Ohio, physician. "Some back issues creep up on him from time to time, but other than that, he's very healthy. He continues to show slow, gradual improvement.
"He's up to about 200 pounds, so he's gained about 30 pounds or so. He's pretty close to his playing weight, I think."
Immediately after the stem-cell treatment, Gordie spent most of his days sleeping a lot and eating ravenously. He slept upward of 13 hours at a time, with a couple of naps. He still sleeps a good 10 hours through the night, with perhaps a two-hour nap in the afternoon, Murray said, and his appetite is healthy.
The family is planning for Gordie to have an additional stem-cell treatment in June, hoping it will give his extraordinary recovery an additional boost, Murray said.
"He still tends to have a lot of down time, but he has all these old videos, playing with Mark and Marty in Houston and Hartford," Murray said. "He loves watching all that old stuff."
Each day involves at least one activity to keep him moving: a trip to the grocery store one day, a walk the next and an occassional trip to the lake to drown some worms and coax a playful catfish to the net.
"He's really happy when he has fishing pole in his hand," Murray said. "Before that first day fishing, we went to the store for tackle, rods and all that stuff. We armed ourselves very well, and we had so much fun."
On one day recently, Murray said, a documentary film company from Canada was in Lubbock to record Howe's recovery process.
"He spent about an hour and a half showing off for them, going up and down stairs, going through an obstacle course," Murray said of his father. "But, cognitively, he's about the same as he was before the (stem-cell) treatment. His short-term memory still is his Achilles' heel, but he's had significant memory loss for about five years, since right around my mom's death."
But Gordie is well aware that he'll be celebrating another birthday, Murray said, adding that his sister is planning a barbecue, maybe even a little more fishing, to honor their father.
"Each day we're with him is a bonus," Murray said. "We know at his age he could just keel over one day and die, so we thank God every day that we still have him."
And so are legions of hockey fans.
BIRTHDAY GREETINGS FROM LINDSAY
Red Wings Hall of Famer and former captain Ted Lindsay, Gordie Howe's left wing on the famed Production Line, extended his birthday greetings to Howe, who turned 87 Tuesday.
"I would like to wish Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe, the greatest hockey player to ever play the game, a very Happy 87th Birthday," Lindsay said in a news release through the Red Wings. "No one to this day can play the game with the same combination of toughness and skill that Gordie displayed for 25 years in a Red Wings uniform.
"He was a great teammate, and I'm thrilled at the progress he's made in his recovery. I wish him all the best as he continues his battle. Happy birthday, Gordie!"
