Medical staff at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, who are following the Pope’s post-op progress, reported Thursday evening that Francis was on a special diet. He mainly drinks liquids. His blood and breath parameters are stable. The postoperative course seems to be normal, the Vatican said.
Mario Galgano – Vatican City
On this Thursday afternoon, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Pope received the Eucharist, according to the Vatican statement. The report also dealt with the many messages that the Pope had received in the past few hours. He was particularly touched by the family’s affection for little Miguel Angel, baptized by Pope Francis on March 31 during his visit to the hospital’s pediatric oncology and neurosurgery department. “The Holy Father wanted to personally thank the mother with a short phone call,” says the message from the Vatican press office.
The operation on the intestines took three hours, explained the surgeon Sergio Alfieri on Wednesday evening. The Pope’s surgeon also made it clear that he found the media excitement surrounding the current intervention to be exaggerated.
Little Miguel Angel
They saw each other on March 31, when they baptized their little Miguel Angel with tears and the laughter of the nurses, who were also moved. They spoke on the phone that Thursday afternoon: a few jokes, words of kindness for a child who has passed a major exam. The scene is the same: the Gemelli Hospital, where the Pope has been hospitalized since Wednesday for a laparotomy and an abdominoplasty with a prosthesis. From his hospital room on the tenth floor, Francis learned that the mother of the child he had met in the pediatric oncology and pediatric neurosurgery ward at the end of March, when the Pope was in hospital with infectious bronchitis, had come to the hospital during the afternoon. The Pope then telephoned the woman, reports the Vatican press office, because he was “impressed” by the affection of the woman, who is Peruvian and has lived in Italy with part of her family for several years, and who sends the Pope a “good Get well” poster gave.
A new encounter
A new virtual encounter, then, with the young mother after the three months ago when the Pope appeared – as he did during the 2021 hospitalization – in this area of the hospital that, despite the cheerfulness of the colors, the painted walls and the toys, harbors the deepest pain that of the children and their bodies wounded by the disease, and that of their parents, who for a few moments found solace in the Pope’s caresses and blessings.
The story of Miguel Angel
Fortunately, Miguel Angel is not a cancer patient, but when he was only a few days old, he too took a big risk on March 30 when he fell out of his car seat and passed out badly. In a race against time, he was taken to the hospital – first to the Roman Hospital “Umberto I” and then to the Gemelli Hospital – thanks to the help of two policewomen from the Office of General Prevention and Public Rescue of the Police Headquarters in Rome, who, during a neighborhood service in heard a car horn beep in their car in Via Palmiro Togliatti and were immediately alerted. In the car, the mother was crying and very upset, holding the unconscious baby while her husband tried to get to the emergency room as quickly as possible. The policewomen immediately switched on an operator so that the mother could reach the Umberto I emergency room. However, Miguel Angel’s condition was serious and he was transferred to Gemelli Hospital on the same day as Pope Francis. He met him the day after his admission and baptized him while he lay in the mobile cradle with a few splashes of blessed water from the renal pelvis. Then he counseled his mother, “He’s already a Christian. If you go to the parish, say that the Pope baptized him.”
The greeting poster
The young mother did it: this Thursday, as we said, she expressed her gratitude to Francis with a greeting poster on which she placed all the photos of her “hermosa” (beautiful) family, sons Massimo Antonio and José Miguel and the rest of the family in Peru, attached. In addition, a dedication in which they thank the Pope for the “blessing” of their young child, and the invitation: “We would like to meet you personally and spend an afternoon with you so that you can get to know our family better.”
(vatican news)
