Pope Francis is improving after his operation last Wednesday for an abdominal hernia, but he cannot make any efforts and therefore will not celebrate the Angelus publicly. The doctors have told him that he must remain at least the whole of the next week at the Gemelli hospital in Rome.
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Sergio Alfieri, the doctor who operated on the pope both last Wednesday and in July 2021 for an intervention in the colon, gave details about the pope’s health and his postoperative period to the media on Saturday, June 10.
A mesh prosthesis was inserted into the pope’s abdominal wall to help it heal, and doctors want it to sit and secure properly to avoid another operation if it ruptures.
The doctor Alfieri stressed that “the pope has not had any kind of heart problem or suffered a heart attack,” he said.
“In recent days, all intravenous treatment has been suspended and he is fed a semi-liquid diet. He is apyretic (no fever) and hemodynamically stable. His blood tests and postoperative chest X-ray are good,” Alfieri explained.
From a cardiorespiratory point of view, the pope is fine, added the doctor, who is in charge of surgery at the Gemelli hospital, and explained that two months ago he had a small problem (pneumonia) “as any 86-year-old person can have, but he has no practically kind of treatment”.
Regarding how many days he will have to be hospitalized, Alfieri reported that at least for the entire next week. “It is a prudent decision to facilitate recovery, but everything is going well,” he said.
“To ensure that he returns to Santa Marta (his residence) in the best conditions, we would like him to remain hospitalized for a week. Full recovery is three months for everyone. It is very important that you return to work physically strong. But we can suggest it to him, because he is the one who decides. We gave him a medical suggestion for Sunday, and he will decide,” he explained.
Alfieri pointed out that “if attention is not paid to the healing and tears of the mesh, it will be necessary to take him to the operating room again. If, on the contrary, a careful convalescence is observed, he will not have any discomfort” and qualified that the other time during the hospitalization prayed the angelus, “but after seven days and he did not have to rest the abdominal wall.”
“But I’m telling you, everything is going well, everything is very good to date. We don’t prevent the Pope from doing things, the Pope decides for himself. He will be able to walk during his recovery, but he is not a person who returns to office in public to work three days after the surgery, but he is a head of state,” he said.
He also explained that the pope is not suffering a lot of pain and for this reason “he undergoes normal analgesic therapy to make sure he can breathe well, because when you have surgery on your abdomen, you try to breathe more shallowly to feel less pain” but that “it is not a soft analgesic, nothing special, to allow him to breathe well”.
For now, no angelus
Although Alfieri assured that although the Pope is 86 years old, “his head is like a 60-year-old man”, when he decided to have the operation the day after the CT scan, he did it because he had planned that it was the best date because in August he would go on a trip, explained the doctor.
In any case, they have advised him not to make efforts and not appear in public to celebrate the Angelus from the hospital, as he did in his previous hospitalization in July 2021 after colon surgery.
This will be the first time in his pontificate that the Pope does not celebrate the Angelus prayer publicly, since even during the pandemic he celebrated it in the pontifical palace and it was broadcast.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the pope would say the traditional Angelus prayer on Sunday at noon in his hospital suite and that the faithful could say it at the same time.
On the advice of the medical staff and the personal health assistant, and as can be deduced from the normal postoperative recovery times in operations of this type, tomorrow the Pope will recite the Angelus prayer in private, uniting himself spiritually, with affection and gratitude, to the faithful who will want to accompany him, wherever they are,” the Vatican explained in a statement.
Normal routine at the end of June
Doctors had said after the operation that the pope should have no limitations on travel and other activities after recovery. He has trips to Portugal from August 2 to 6 for World Youth Day and to visit the Shrine of Fatima, and to Mongolia from August 31 to September 4, one of the most remote places he will ever visit.
The Vatican reported that all audiences until June 18 had been cancelled, but after that date the pope’s calendar would stick for now.
Traditionally, the Pope takes the entire month of July off, with Sunday blessings being his only public appearance, so he will have the entire month to rest before the trip to Portugal.
With information from EFE and Reuters
