Not just recovery, IMO; the fact that he was on painkillers seemed rather evident to me.
Though I made the obvious pun above, it’s still my honest opinion; there was a total lack of clarity which is usually present in most of King’s work, and the ending (or lack thereof) was just underwhelming as fuck.
I wanted the time I wasted reading it back, and I say that as a long-time ‘Constant Reader.’
The irony of the situation is that everyone who turned off their phone in fear of being mind controlled by lasers from space/5g lipid nanovaccines, did this because they were mind controlled by words.
I do see a lot of cell zombies in shopping mall parking lots: Shambling along, in the middle of the road, not paying attention to anything but the phone in their hand, usually on speakerphone.