KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? After a grim week, Andy Marso’s spirits are lifting.

The recent Kansas University graduate from St. Cloud, Minn., is in the painful recovery stages of a surgery that removed all of his toes and the balls of both feet. The surgery, performed Monday, is one of the later steps toward recovery in Marso’s battle with bacterial meningitis, which he was diagnosed with more than six weeks ago.

Marso may undergo more amputation surgery as early as next week. This time, the aspiring reporter probably will lose fingers from both hands, according to the Weblog that his mother, Ginny, updates daily.

A friend who visited Marso Wednesday at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., said he was watching “Love Actually” and joking about an impending love scene with British actor Hugh Grant.

“He didn’t have a lot of energy but he was making jokes,” said Michelle Burhenn, who will be a senior at Kansas University in the fall. “He’s at least mentally doing OK.”

Burhenn, who had been Marso’s editor at The University Daily Kansan, said he had been more jovial a week ago.

A spokesman from the hospital said Marso was in fair condition Thursday night.

However, the pain has been excruciating. Marso described it as a burning, stabbing, shooting pain that would come from being “caught in a vice,” his mother wrote Tuesday.

Ginny Marso’s online journal entry Tuesday revealed the difficulty of the recovery.

“Stoic as he’s been, today he would cry, the pain was so intense, and Grandma and I would stand at his bedside with the tears running down our cheeks as well,” she wrote.

At least one member of the family from Minnesota — including brothers and Marso’s grandmother — has been at his bedside since Marso was stricken with the illness. The family moved into an apartment this week that’s 10 minutes from the hospital.

After several stints on a respirator and weeks in critical condition, Marso was transferred to the hospital’s burn unit May 6 for closer monitoring of his skin. A complication of bacterial meningitis, which infects the lining of the brain, is often a skin rash that develops when small blood vessels throughout the body burst and cause inflammation.

Doctors have been administering what’s called hydrotherapy to Marso for weeks in an attempt to save his extremities. In the therapy, Marso is submerged in water and deadened tissue is gradually scraped away.

Last month, Marso’s brother Dan walked down Campanile Hill in Andy Marso’s place during commencement ceremonies at KU. Chancellor Robert Hemenway later drove to Kansas City to personally present Marso with his diploma. Marso earned the highest grade-point average of his class in KU’s School of Journalism.