After a breathing crisis on February 28 that involved Francis nearly choking on his vomit, "there was a real risk he might not make it," said Sergio Alfieri, a physician at Rome's Gemelli hospital.
"We had to choose if we would stop there and let him go, or to go forward and push it with all the drugs and therapies possible, running the highest risk of damaging his other organs," Alfieri told
The Vatican provided an unusual amount of detail in its daily updates on the pope's condition during his stay in hospital, which included four "respiratory crises" involving serious coughing fits caused by constrictions in his airways, akin to asthma attacks.
Alfieri had previously said that two of the crises were critical, putting Francis "in danger of his life". In the new interview, the doctor said it was the pope's personal nurse who, after the vomiting episode, instructed the medical team to keep going with treatment.
Francis has been prescribed a further two month period of rest since leaving hospital to fully heal. It has not been made clear how much he will be seen in public in coming weeks. (And then he'll be having a terrible May
)https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/do ... 025-03-25/
