Lady Gaga’s dog walker Ryan Fischer says he has had part of his lung removed after being shot in the chest by a dognapper in Los Angeles.
Mr Fischer described how he had been making a “remarkably fast” recovery when his lung collapsed and he had to have surgery.
He is now out of hospital and at home.
Mr Fischer was walking the singer’s three French bulldogs in Hollywood in February when he was confronted by a man carrying a semi-automatic handgun.
The gunman shot Mr Fischer and he and an accomplice took two of the dogs, Koji and Gustav. A third bulldog, named Miss Asia, ran away and was later recovered by police.
The stolen dogs were returned unharmed a few days later by a woman – apparently uninvolved in the incident – who handed them into a Los Angeles police station.
Police have yet to identify any suspects.
Mr Fischer wrote in a lengthy Instagram post that his initial recovery looked positive.
“With the chest tube removed (which I can only equate to an alien baby extraction) and my blood oxygen stable, the journey outside to recover with loved ones began.”
However, he then began to experience “strange hissing and glugging coming from my chest every time I took a breath”.
“It became quite clear that my lung was not healing,” he went on to say, “and the bullet wound had scarred my tissue like a burn”.
When he was wheeled into surgery to have portions of his lung removed, he said he had “finally accepted my recovery had become anything but a straight line”.
He ended his post by saying: “The journey is hard, it’s assuredly painful, and questionable choices that no longer serve me like wearing skinny jeans are made. But I try. And somewhere within that I find the absurdity and wonder and beauty this life offers us all.”
Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, was in Rome working on a new Ridley Scott film, Gucci, when her dogs were stolen.
At the time she called Mr Fischer a “hero” who risked his life “to fight for our family”.
She offered a $500,000 (£359,282) reward to anyone who would return the dogs; it is not clear if this was handed over to the woman who brought the pets in.
It was also not clear if the dogs were targeted because of Lady Gaga’s celebrity status, or whether it was a chance – or planned – attack, because of the prized and valuable breed of dog involved.