Former prime minister Ariel Sharon responds to stimulus and has gained weight despite being in a coma-like state after suffering a stroke almost six years ago, his son Gilad told
The New York Times in an interview published on Thursday.
“When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to,” Gilad Sharon said of his father. “I am sure he hears me,” he added.
RELATED:Ariel Sharon's family to pay part of his medical costsOpinion: Missing Ariel SharonGilad Sharon is set to release a biography of his father, entitled,
Sharon: The Life of a Leader, in both Hebrew and English on Tuesday.
“He lies in bed, looking like the lord of the manor, sleeping
tranquilly. Large, strong, self assured. His cheeks are a healthy shade
of red. When he’s awake, he looks out with a penetrating stare. He
hasn’t lost a single pound; on the contrary, he’s gained some,” Gilad
Sharon purports in the biography.
Sharon told the
Times that he
hopes his father will return home permanently from Hadassah University
Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem in the coming year.
Gilad Sharon claims in the book that he and his brother Omri had
insisted that his father be kept alive following his stroke in 2006
despite doctors and nurses advising them to let him die. He adds that
doctors later acknowledged that Ariel Sharon was healthier than they had
first believed due to their having misread a CT scan.