Pears had spent much of the weekend in intensive care after injuring his pancreas in the opening minutes of Friday night’s clash with Hawthorn.
But Essendon doctor Bruce Reid said Pears had recovered well enough to leave intensive care.
“It was pretty serious," Dr Reid said on Monday morning. "Tayte is now fortunately back in the ward so that is fantastic, we’re very happy about that.
Dr Reid compared the injury to Leigh Colbert's pancreas injury in 2003 although he stressed it was not quite as serious.
“He (Colbert) actually ruptured his pancreas whereas Tayte’s got a bruised pancreas," Dr Reid said.
"It’s a big operation, a two and a half hour operation but no split of the pancreas, which means he will make a full recovery.”
Pears is expected to miss eight to 10 weeks but Reid said the recovery would be mainly from the trauma of the operation rather than the actual incident.
“The biggest problem is you’ve got to cut right up the middle so that wound is going to take six weeks to really get strong," Dr Reid said. "He is virtually told by the professor that he is not allowed to do much for six weeks.
“He is going to lose fitness. If we’re in the running he’ll need three or four weeks to get fit so he’s going to play in eight or 10.
"If the season’s over because we perform badly then it’s up to the coach whether we’ll rest him.”
Reid, who has been with Essendon for 28 years, says Pears’ injury had the potential to be one of the more serious on-field injuries he had encountered.
“We’ve had a few ruptured spleens, (Matthew) Lloyd in ’96 spent 10 days in intensive care," he said. "The thing about blood is that as long as you can stop the bleeding it doesn’t do any damage.
“The potential of a pancreas is that the secretions digest you, so we don’t want them outside the pancreas or the bowel.
"They’ve got drain tubes in his tummy making sure if there’s any leakage it’s not going to digest him, that it’s not going to come out. So far it’s been excellent so they’ve shifted him into a normal ward.”
