Murphy Jensen Health Update: Gaining Strength and Walking

Murphy Jensen is a champion and fighter–and showing both qualities as he continues recovery from a heart attack.

The 53-year-old Jensen is growing stronger and has started walking as he remains hospitalized in Colorado. Murphy’s mother, Patricia, shared encouraging news: his family plans to transfer him to an acute physical therapy facility tomorrow.

“The acute [physical therapy facility] will give him three to four hours of all kinds of occupational therapy,” Patricia Jensen posted. “There is also outpatient therapy there. So our plan is to start with transferring him there on a day by day basis.”

The Jensen family hopes to bring Murphy home in about a week if all goes well.

“The hospital has made Murphy slightly crazy the last two days and I ended up spending the night last night,” Patricia said. “We got him calmed down and he finally got some sleep. Today is a much better day.

“The bummer is they keep him under basically 24-hour surveillance, but alone in his room and he can’t stand up without a nurse present, which makes him feel little like a caged animal. He is getting strong and more agile and his head is clearing quite a bit. ”

Former Roland Garros doubles champion, commentator and coach Murphy was playing in a tennis pro-celebrity charity event in Colorado when he suffered a heart attack followed by a very bad fall.

The trauma and hospitalization have not dampened Murphy’s spirit or sense of humor. In fact, Murphy’s mom shares he celebrated a positive Sunday with “some vintage tap steps.”

“He’s hallucinating less and his humor is more and more present,” Patricia Jensen shared. “He got outside today- walked down to the courtyard and sat in the sun for an hour. That has done him a lot of good… he’s doing some vintage tap steps, (thank you PMJ) and giving the nurses their own heart attacks. They are not psyched about him dancing quite yet. We’ll keep you posted… “