MESSAGE BOARDS   Share your best wishes for Stephen King's quick recovery

July 16, 1999
Web posted at: 9:43 a.m. EDT (1343 GMT)

(CNN) -- Stephen King is back home and has quite a bit of reading ahead of him once he gains more of his strength back. His personal assistant Marsha DeFilippo says King's office has been inundated with thousands of cards and e-mails since the best-selling horror novelist was struck by a van near his summer home in Lovell, Maine, on June 19.

"He really isn't up to looking at those right now," she says. "But we are saving them, and when the time comes, we'll pass them by him. It may take him a while to get through them. We're still trying to open them all."

Although King hasn't read all of the get-well messages, he's aware of them and extremely touched by them, DeFilippo said. In fact, King posted a letter of gratitude on his web site that read:

"I want to thank everyone for their concern from the bottom of my heart. I have never been so shaken and touched and moved than by the concern that so many people have expressed for me. I am quite badly hurt, bedridden, but with all my senses intact. My doctors tell me that I should be able to walk again after a long period of recovery, and I hope you will keep me in your thoughts and prayers."

Stephen King
July 12, 1999

King was released from Central Maine Medical Center last week after recuperating for three weeks from five operations. His injuries include a collapsed lung, multiple fractures in his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip. He's now recovering at home in Bangor, where he's undergoing physical therapy.

"His doctor has said it will take at least three months before he'll get strength back in his broken leg," DeFilippo said. "He can't even lift his leg at this point, and they do want him to try to keep that straight."

It will take about nine months to a year of physical therapy before King will be fully operational, says Mary Lawson of Scribner, which published King's most recent book.

King, a season ticket holder for Boston Red Sox games at Fenway Park, had to miss the Major League Baseball All-Star game in Boston on Tuesday, Lawson said, but he watched from home. The boys of summer didn't forget him, DeFilippo said, and the All-Stars are sending him a signed program, as well as a bat and baseball from the game.

King's love for the Sox made it into his most recent piece of fiction, "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon." Gordon is a relief pitcher for the team. Other best-selling King thrillers include "Carrie," "Misery" and "The Shining."

Reuters contributed to this report.