President Fidel Castro told his countrymen in a letter published today that he remained fully in command of Cuba, even while undergoing surgery to rebuild his knee shattered in a fall.
The Cuban leader refused tranquilizers and general anesthetic during three-hour surgery to rebuild his broken left kneecap.
He told doctors only to apply anesthetic from the waist down, so he would "be able to attend many important matters," during the procedure.
"Since the moment I fell, I have not stopped attending to the important tasks that I am responsible for, in coordination with the other comrades," Mr Castro wrote in a letter printed on the front-page of Granma, the ruling Communist Party newspaper.
Mr Castro, 78, tripped on a step and fell to the ground after a speech on Wednesday night in central Cuba, breaking the knee in eight places and suffering a hairline fracture in the right arm.
He quickly called for a microphone to reassure the stunned crowd and Cubans who saw the tumble live on television that he was "intact" and could continue governing in a plaster cast.
Using a cellular phone from the ambulance, he first called his office to find out what the international reaction to his fall had been, Mr Castro said in the letter.
The fall was shown repeatedly on US television newscasts, but brought him no get well wishes from the Bush administration.