Pope has restful night after respiratory setback, Vatican says
Global News
Doctors said it would take a day or two to evaluate how and if the Friday afternoon episode impacted Francis’ overall clinical condition.
Pope Francis had coffee and was reading newspapers Saturday after an alarming setback in his two-week recovery from double pneumonia: Doctors had to put him on noninvasive mechanical ventilation following a coughing fit in which he inhaled vomit that needed to then be extracted.
Doctors said it would take a day or two to evaluate how and if the Friday afternoon episode impacted Francis’ overall clinical condition. His prognosis remained guarded, meaning he wasn’t out of danger.
In its morning update Saturday, the Vatican said the 88-year-old pope didn’t have any further respiratory crises overnight: “The night has passed quietly, the pope is resting.” He had coffee in the morning for breakfast, suggesting that he was not dependent on a ventilation mask to breathe and was still eating on his own.
In the late Friday update, the Vatican said Francis suffered an “isolated crisis of bronchial spasm,” a coughing fit in which Francis inhaled vomit, that resulted in a “sudden worsening of the respiratory picture.” Doctors aspirated the vomit and placed Francis on noninvasive mechanical ventilation.
The pope remained conscious and alert at all times and cooperated with the maneuvers to help him recover. He responded well, with a good level of oxygen exchange and was continuing to wear a mask to receive supplemental oxygen, the Vatican said.
The episode, which occurred in the early afternoon, marked a setback in what had been two successive days of increasingly upbeat reports from doctors treating Francis at Rome’s Gemelli hospital since Feb. 14. The pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has lung disease and was admitted after a bout of bronchitis worsened and turned into pneumonia in both lungs.
The Vatican said the episode was different from the prolonged respiratory crisis on Feb. 22, that was said to have caused Francis discomfort.
Dr. John Coleman, a pulmonary critical care doctor at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said the isolated episode Friday as relayed by the Vatican was nevertheless alarming and underscored Francis’ fragility and that his condition “can turn very quickly.”
