New England Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe, released from Massachusetts General Hospital early Thursday morning, said he won't be allowed to do any physical activity for two weeks and doesn't know if he will return to the field in three weeks or longer.

Bledsoe suffered internal bleeding in his chest cavity Sunday on what he described as a clean hit from New York Jets linebacker Mo Lewis. According to Bledsoe, the hit apparently caused the rib cage to partially tear and something clipped an artery.

"The chest cavity filled up with blood slowly and got worse," Bledsoe said. "The lung never collapsed. So maybe the lung capacity diminished."

Bledsoe still has pain when he takes deep breaths. The only worry of long-term damage is if there is scarring in the chest cavity. To prevent that, doctors advised him to take deep breaths once an hour so that the lungs fully expand.

In two weeks, Bledsoe will visit with doctors and determine his timeline for returning to the field.

"They don't want me doing anything," Bledsoe said. "No heavy lifting. They don't want me to pick up kids. For two weeks, I have to lay low."

Though he described Lewis' hit as one of the five hardest he's even taken, Bledsoe said he never felt he was in a life-threatening situation.

"It made me nervous," Bledsoe admitted "They talked about some options such as if they had to open me up."

Surgery was dismissed early in the process once he arrived at the hospital Sunday night. Bledsoe had to have a chest tube inserted between two ribs to remove the blood from his chest cavity. While the blood was being removed from his chest, he was getting blood.

The injury happened on a sideline play in which Jets defensive end Shaun Ellis was trying to tackle Bledsoe along the sidelines. Bledsoe tried to lean back to stay in bounds and make an extra yard or two. That move left his chest exposed to a hard hit from Lewis.

"Mo put a good hit on me, but it was a clean hit," Bledsoe said.

When he came to the sidelines, he talked with third-string quarterback Damon Huard about plays that weren't currently in the playbook. At that point, the Patriots realized that Bledsoe was injured.

Once he got the training room after the game and started removing his clothes, he started feeling pain in his chest.

Bledsoe was hospitalized from Sunday night through Thursday morning. He said the damaged artery has apparently healed itself.

"It was a strange and unique injury," Bledsoe said. "That kind of bleeding in the chest cavity usually goes with broken ribs. It was strange from that point (that his ribs weren't broken). They didn't sit it as a sign of a larger problem."

Asked how he reflected on being hit so hard, Bledsoe, one of the league's most durable quarterbacks, said, "It's a violent game."

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.