My maternal grandmother lived to the age of 94. She was bright and coherent all her days until the last 48 hours, when she fell asleep not to wake up again. She has a weak heart. She took medicine for that weak heart since the age of sixty. As she aged and grew into her eighties it never failed that every February she came down with a lung infection and was admitted to the hospital. We used to call it 'her annual tune up.'
I think John Paul II needed his 'tune-up.'
February 3, 2005
Pope's Condition in Hospital Is Called Stable After Health Scare
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, International Herald Tribune
OME, Feb. 2 - Pope John Paul II was stable and working from his hospital bed on Wednesday, the Vatican said, after a scare that again raised questions about his failing health and the succession of leadership in the Roman Catholic Church.
The pope entered an Italian hospital on Tuesday night suffering from what is presumed to be influenza, which can pose a serious threat to people with Parkinson's disease. That progressive brain disorder has plagued him for more than a decade. While the Vatican said his breathing problems had stabilized with treatment during the night, he remained in the hospital.
Some respiratory experts predicted that it would be difficult for John Paul, who is 84, to ever fully regain his already frail health.
"If the bulletins today are honest and not diplomatic, he will recover, and this diagnosis is not harmful to his life," said Dr. Luigi Allegra, head of the cardiopulmonary department at Polyclinic Hospital in Milan. "But this is a further insult to a body that is already ill, and I am afraid that the outcome will not be perfect, and he will not recover to his previous condition."
The Vatican said Wednesday that the pope's breathing difficulties had been diagnosed as stemming from "acute laryngeal tracheitis," an inflammation of the breathing tubes that lead from the mouth to the lungs.
This common condition normally produces coughing spasms, hoarseness and fever, and it can also lead to shortness of breath in more severe cases, especially if the patient is weak. It can be caused by a number of viruses, including influenza.
But breathing difficulties of this sort can be extremely serious - even life threatening - in people with advanced Parkinson's disease, in part because their chest muscles that control breathing and coughing function poorly.
The pope was taken by ambulance from the Vatican to the Gemelli Polyclinic here late Tuesday night, in what his spokesman characterized as a "mainly precautionary" admission for "breathing difficulty." From Tuesday night into the early hours of Wednesday morning, he received "respiratory assistance therapies," which stabilized his condition, the Vatican said, and he was afterward able to sleep for "some hours."
He had "just a little fever," said his spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls. The pope has been sick for several days.
Although the Vatican did not mention what treatments he had received, common treatments would include low doses of supplemental oxygen, and medicines or respiratory therapy to loosen the mucus in the airways. Therapy would probably include nebulizers.
People with Parkinson's disease may have slow reflexes and difficulty walking that limits their mobility. They may also have difficulty exhaling, in part because of weakness of their breathing muscles in the chest and because of an inability to "put their muscle movements together like other people," said Dr. Robert J. Joynt, a neurologist and former vice provost for health affairs at the University of Rochester.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Vatican reported that the pope had appointed two bishops from his hospital bed, suggesting a steady improvement in his condition.
"The pope is the pope," Dr. Allegra said. "He has been through a lot. We are used to miracles from him."
Lawrence K. Altman contributed reporting from New York for this article.
