CLINTON, Ark. (KARK) — An Arkansas man returned home Friday after spending months in the hospital battling COVID-19.

In an emotional goodbye, David McPherson left the Ozark Health Medical Center in Clinton, Arkansas, where he spent the past eight months in a hospital bed.

“It means a lot, but I’ve got a lot of friends here,” McPherson said. “I have a new great-grandson that I haven’t seen yet; I want to see him.” 

The 69-year-old was hospitalized in July of 2020 after falling ill; he was later diagnosed with COVID-19. He also battled several other compilations while he was there.

“He had a blood clot on his lungs, he had pneumonia, he had double pneumonia, he had the COVID, he had kidney failure with it, he had heart failure with it, lung failure,” said Amie Ealy, McPheron’s daughter.

The list goes on as far as complications. Initially, his family said he was told he would never walk again, let alone make it, but his family says he fought hard to get to this point.

“They’ve all treated me so nice, and I hope everything goes good for everybody,” McPherson said. “I’m walking now when I first came in here I was hardly able to move my left side.”

McPherson worked hard to get to the next step of recovery.

“Everything you can think of happening, it happened,” Ealy said. “But he had such a will to live.” 

Despite hearing the worse news last year, McPherson is proving doctors wrong.

“To see my dad, just push through, I mean, I know it was hard, he’s been in a lot of pain, but he pushes through,” Ealy said. “He gives people hope; he gives us hope.”

Ealy said it’ll still take some time for McPherson to fully recover. The icing on the cake, his birthday was Friday and his family made him a home-cooked meal along with a healthy fruit cake.