Pope Francis’ doctor: “He knew he could die, who was around him had tears in his eyes”

The worst moment of the long hospitalization at the Gemelli Polyclinic of Pope Francis was on February 28 14 days after the Pope had entered the Roman hospital. “It’s ugly”. These are the words of Bergoglio reported in an interview with Corriere della Sera by Professor Sergio Alfierithe doctor at the head of the team who edited the Pope. At that moment, the doctor explains, “for the first time I saw tears in the eyes to some people who were around him. People who, I understood in this period of hospitalization, wants them sincerely well, as to a father. We were all aware that the situation had further aggravated and there was the risk that he protected it does not make it. “

Professor Alfieri explains what the choice made in the moment of difficulty was. «We had to choose whether to stop and let it go or force and try with all the possible drugs and therapies, running the very high risk of damaging other organs. And in the end we took this path ». The decision was always of the Pontiff through his personal health assistant Massimiliano Strappetti.

Pope Francis understood that he risked dying. «It has always been alert. Even when his condition worsened was fully conscious. That evening it was terrible, he knew, like us, who could not exceed the night. We saw the man who suffered. However, he asked us to tell him the truth from the first day and he wanted him to tell the truth about his condition. “

That truth were also told in the medical bulletins made public. «We communicated to the secretaries the medical part and they added the other information that the Pope then approved, nothing has ever been modified or omitted. He has people who are now as familiar, always are with him ».

The doctor tells the attention to the conditions of the kidneys and the marrow until the body has responded to the treatments and the lung infection has mitigated. The second critical moment came for a regurgitation while the pontiff ate. Pope Francis has inhaled. Rescue was immediate. “He has always realized everything but I think his awareness was also the reason that instead kept him alive. In the past, when we talked I asked him how he does this rhythm and he always replied: “I have a method and rule”. Beyond a very strong heart, it has incredible resources. I think that this also contributed the fact that the whole world prayed for him. I can say that twice the situation was lost and then it happened as a miracle. Of course, he He was a very collaborative patient. He underwent all therapies without ever complaining ».

According to Professor Alfieri, the Pope has the mental lucidity of a fifty year old. «As soon as he started feeling better he asked to go around the department. We asked him if he wanted him to close the rooms of the degents but on the contrary he looked for the gaze of the other patients. He moved with the wheelchair, one day he left the room five times, perhaps even more. And then there was the evening of the pizza. He gave the money to one of the collaborators and offered the pizza to those who had witnessed him that day. It was a continuous improvement and I understood that he had decided to return to Santa Marta when, one morning, he said to me: “I’m still alive, when do we go home?”. The next day he faced the window, looked for the microphone and turned to the lady with the yellow flowers. It seemed to me a clear signal to say I came back and I am in the middle of my faculties ».

Two months of Bergoglio were prescribed Protected convalescence. «Certainly in this phase it has prescriptions that should observe, how to avoid contacts with groups of people or with children who can be a vehicle for new infections. When it went away we spoke and promised not to waste the effort made. But he is the Pope, it is not we who can dictate behaviors ».