Remember when the pope was at the door of death? No more

Pope Francis has shown “a really surprising improvement” since his return to the Vatican for recovery after surviving a deadly fight with double pneumonia, the doctor who coordinated the hospitalization of the pontiff on Saturday. “I find him very alive,” said Dr. Sergio Alfieri, after visiting the Pope on Wednesday, three days after his release from the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, by the AP. “I think it will come back, if not 100%, 90% of the place where it was before.” However, he warned that if the pope returns to things too quickly, “they will have to put the brakes.”

Francis appeared frail and weak on a balcony of the hospital on Sunday. His voice was declined as he praised a woman in the crowd, and he could only partially wash his arm to bless the people. He also dropped out when he returned inside. Alfieri said that the Pope’s voice has resumed strength since and that his dependence on additional oxygen has decreased. His limited mobility of the arm was due to an undeveloped trauma that he suffered before being hospitalized; It will take time to heal, said Alfieri.

The 88 -year -old man was hospitalized on February 14 after a fight with a bronchitis which sometimes breathed it, and which quickly turned into double pneumonia and revealed a polymicrobial respiratory infection (viral, bacterial and fungal). Doctors stressed the complexity of his state, given his age, the lack of mobility requiring a wheelchair and the elimination of a part of a lung as a young man. Alfieri repeated that he did not think that the pope would do after a serious respiratory crisis one week after being hospitalized, and he informed the Pope that a “decisive” treatment necessary to save him would endanger his organs.

“He gave his consent, then he looked at (his personal health assistant) to say:” We approve everything “,” said Alfieri. The doctor pointed out that no extraordinary measure and the extent of life had never been taken. Although Francis defeated double pneumonia in the hospital, Alfieri said that he continued to treat fungal infection, which will take months to solve. The Pope also receives physical, respiratory and speech therapies. Francis demonstrated his brand humor during this week’s visit, responding to a comment from Alfieri that he was one or 60 years. “As I leaned, he said:” Not 50, 40 “”, remembers Alfieri. “So his common sense of humor is back.”

(More stories by Pope Francis.)