Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – "A full recovery will take about ten days." This is how long the Pope's convalescence will last, as he was discharged today from the Gemelli Hospital after a five-day hospital stay for the removal of a malignant lung tumor, according to surgeon Stefano Margaritora, who operated on him. "Treating him like a normal person, after this type of surgery, I think a truly complete physical recovery will take a couple of weeks.
So,” the surgeon explained to the Vatican media, “since almost a week has already passed, all things considered I believe that the Pope will be fully recovered in another ten days.”
Pope Leo was an ideal patient. I'm not saying this to flatter, but he truly was a patient who caused the team caring for him not a single problem, and he wouldn't have caused one even if his name had been Mario Bianchi.
Always calm, always smiling, very little complaint in the face of pain that, despite all the maneuvers, a person certainly feels. He followed all our steps from a dietary standpoint, from a physiotherapy standpoint." The surgeon also shared a curious detail: "He always did a little more than what was asked of him.
On the second day after the operation, we turned around and he was arranging the chairs in the chapel. We said to him, 'Holy Father, we're here.' And he said, 'It doesn't matter, I can do it, I'll do it.' So, what can I say? He was truly an absolutely ideal patient."
"The discovery of the Pope's malignant lung tumor was completely accidental, as unfortunately often happens, because during routine abdominal examinations, this small spot was discovered in the chest, at the base of the lungs," explained the surgeon who operated on the Pope at the Gemelli Hospital, Stefano Margaritora. "This," he told Vatican media, "is quite normal, because when abdominal x-rays are performed, since the diaphragm is a kind of parachute, the base of the lungs is normally visible. But certainly, if this small spot had been a little higher, it would not have been seen."
The surgeon, who called the pontiff the "ideal patient," explained that it was a routine operation: "I would be dishonest to say it was too complicated for heroic deeds. In reality, the operation on the Holy Father was a routine one, in the sense that in similar cases, for a lung tumor of a certain size, the entire lobe containing it must be removed. In the Holy Father's case, it was the lower lobe of the right lung. And so, from this point of view, it was a routine operation." The surgeon expressed his satisfaction with the Pontiff's post-operative recovery: "Yes, we are truly pleased about this, because the Holy Father, during his post-operative recovery, truly put his heart and soul into it, like the most motivated people after this type of operation. And so our assistance to him was truly minimal, because his desire to have a very rapid recovery is very effective from every perspective: it was truly commendable."
"I would say there are no medical reasons why the Pope's trip to Latin America "cannot take place," says surgeon Stefano Margaritora. From a medical standpoint, therefore, the Pope can sustain the demanding trip to Latin America scheduled for November 6-17.
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