LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) Ravaged by a stroke that left him unable to walk and barely able to speak, Gordie Howe had decided it was time to quit.
His sons didn't want to hear it. Not from Mr. Hockey, whose 25-year career in the NHL was defined by his indomitable style of play and blend of grit and finesse.
"He was saying, 'Take me out back and shoot me,'" recalled Murray Howe, a diagnostic radiologist. "He was serious. It wasn't like a joke. I said, 'Dad, let's just see if we can help you first.'"
They found it in Mexico, where experimental stem cell treatments produced what his family called a "life changing" turnaround that has put the 87-year-old Howe back on his feet. A second round of treatments is planned in June.
Recent years have been challenging for Howe, who set NHL marks with 801 goals and 1,850 points mostly with the Detroit Red Wings that held up until Wayne Gretzky surpassed him. He retired from hockey for good, but not until he was 52.
The body he counted on as an athlete has stayed relatively strong, but memory loss from the early stages of dementia became a problem even before his wife's death in 2009 after battling Pick's disease, a rare form of dementia similar to Alzheimer's. Colleen Howe's death was a blow and seemed to hasten Howe's decline, Murray Howe said.
Howe's four children began taking turns having him live at their homes for weeks or months at a time.
Howe had a significant stroke on Oct. 26, losing use of his right arm and leg, and his speech was slurred. He was still able to recognize people in family photos and those from his playing days, and he improved in the weeks that followed. But because he couldn't swallow following the stroke, he shed 35 pounds. And then came another blow the next month.
Howe lay nonresponsive in a hospital for days. Murray Howe said he began writing his father's eulogy and other family members started making funeral arrangements. Since a back problem last summer, Howe has been in Lubbock, Texas, at the home of his daughter, Cathy Purnell.
"We decided Lubbock would be his final resting place, essentially," Murray Howe said. "We thought it would be a nice, steady decline."
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Gordie Howe's comeback from stroke caps challenging years