Bilingual Pope talks to aides
The Pope spoke with a top Vatican official in German and Italian today, a cardinal said, suggesting the ailing pontiff was making significant strides toward recovery after throat surgery to ease a breathing crisis.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said John Paul used both languages in a working meeting at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital, where the 84-year-old pontiff is recovering from last week’s operation to insert a breathing tube in his throat.
Earlier, a Vatican spokesman said the pope’s condition is improving.
Throat specialists, including one who attended the pope’s operation last Thursday to cut a breathing hole into his windpipe, said patients like John Paul should be able to speak normally again, although not as loudly.
But even as the Vatican insisted the pontiff’s recovery was proceeding uneventfully, Parkinson’s specialists said the debilitating neurological disease may well figure in more breathing crises.
“We are in a stage where it’s evident that the patient is fragile because of progression of a disease with a 15, 20 year history,” said Giovanni Fabbrini, a neurologist at Rome’s Umberto I hospital.
“He’s over the average age of 78” and he’s “vulnerable” to more such respiratory problems, said Dr Fabbrini, stressing that he hasn’t examined John Paul.
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