Pope Francis suffered two new acute respiratory crises Monday and was put back on noninvasive mechanical ventilation, in another setback to his battle to fight pneumonia, the Vatican said. Doctors extracted "copious" amounts of mucus from his lungs during two bronchoscopies, in which a camera-tipped tube was sent down into his airways with a sucker at the tip to suction out fluid. The Vatican said the mucus was his body's reaction to the original pneumonia infection and not a new infection, given laboratory tests don't indicate any new bacteria, the AP reports.
Francis remained alert, oriented, and cooperated with medical personnel. The prognosis remained guarded. Doctors didn't say if he remained in stable condition, though they referred to the crises in the past tense, suggesting they were over. The Vatican hasn't released any photos or videos of the 88-year-old pope since before he entered the hospital on Feb. 14. This has become the longest absence of his 12-year papacy.
Dr. John Coleman, a pulmonary critical care doctor at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said the episodes were more concerning than the last one on Friday, in which Francis had a coughing fit, inhaled some vomit that needed to be extracted, and was put on the noninvasive mechanical ventilation for a day and then didn't need it anymore. The use of bronchoscopies reflects a worrying level of mucus and phlegm in the lungs, said Coleman, who is not involved in Francis' care. "The fact that they had to go in there and remove it manually is concerning, because it means that he is not clearing the secretions on his own," he said.
story continues below
The Vatican on Sunday had distributed a message written by the pope from the hospital in which he thanked his doctors for their care and well-wishers for their prayers, and prayed again for peace in Ukraine and elsewhere. "From here, war appears even more absurd," Francis said in the message, which he drafted in recent days. Francis said he was living his hospitalization as an experience of profound solidarity with people who are sick and suffering everywhere.
(More
Pope Francis stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
