Matt Murphy is learning how to walk again.
The 39-year-old undergoes three hours of physical therapy a day, to rebuild leg muscles which he says a chef must have to work.
But in order to appreciate how far he's come, you need to know where he's been.
In May, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel's executive chef slipped on a child's toy at home and hurt his knee. He didn't think anything of it until the swelling and the pain forced him to the hospital.
"They tried to take my blood pressure and it was like non-existent, and after that I don't remember anything for a month," Murphy said during an exclusive interview this week.
Murphy, who's led the team in the Ritz kitchen for the past six years, had contracted a very rare bacterial infection. The infection led to toxic shock syndrome, which took control of his organs and destroyed the tissue inhis body. Matt was, to put it bluntly, on death's door, because of a simple fall.
"It was crazy. I thought I had been abducted by UFOs at the first part of it because I couldn't remember anything. I just totally blacked out," he said.
"I thought I was going to get a Band-Aid for my knee or an injection to stop the swelling. It was mind-boggling."
Murphy spent two months in intensive care and had 16 surgeries, including skin grafts on his legs and arms. He lost 40 pounds. Just a few weeks ago, it was all he could do to sit up in bed for a couple of hours. Now he's walking stairs.
"It's absolutely amazing, truly amazing," said Noel Rossignol, Murphy's occupational therapist at Ochsner. "More than I could have imagined, and in such a short period of time."
Visits from Murphy's wife Alicia often provide a daily update from the home front.
"She was still sleepingno, noMargaret was sleeping and Elizabeth and Molly were running around, running all over the place," Alicia told him during Tuesday's visit.
If you lost count, don't feel badly. There are four children in the Murphy household. In December 2007, Alicia gave birth to quadruplet girls, and next month the fifth girl, Alana, is set to arrive. It is just another driving force pushing Matt to work even harder.
"I've been joking with him, 'OK, buddy, you need to get on the move, cause we've got business going on in the beginning of September,' and that's if she decides to stay on time," Alicia joked.
The therapy is crucial, but Matt got a dose of the best medicine this weekend: a trip home to see the wife and kids. It was his first trip home in three months.
"They came downstairs and I was sitting on the couch and all four of them came over and just stood there looking at me," he said. "They got on the couch with me and were just studying me. They were like 'This is Daddy. We were looking at a picture, now he's sitting at home."
The Ireland native got a true taste of this city's generosity in June, when area chefs and restaurants turned out for a benefit for the family. It was an outpouring of kindness the Murphy family will never forget.
"I remember sitting in the hospital thinking all the chefs, all the restaurants, all these people and it really is humbling and I don't know how I'm going to thank everybody," Matt said.
But he knows the only thanks his friends want is to see him walk back into the Ritz-Carlton kitchen. He says that's no longer a matter of if, but when.
"That's my life I love cooking," he said.
