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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Pope begins receiving speech, breathing therapy

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope John Paul II has begun speech and respiratory therapy following surgery to ease his latest breathing crisis, the Vatican said Monday without indicating when he might be able to speak in public or leave the hospital.

Throat specialists, including one who attended the 84-year-old pope’s operation Thursday to cut a breathing hole in his windpipe, said patients like the pope should be able to speak normally again, although not as loudly.

But even as the Vatican’s medical bulletin – the first issued since Friday – insisted the pontiff’s recovery is proceeding uneventfully at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital, Parkinson’s disease specialists said the debilitating neurological disease may well figure in more breathing crises for the pontiff.

“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 Polyclinic.

“He’s over the average age of 78,” and he’s “vulnerable” to more respiratory problems, said the doctor, stressing that he hasn’t examined the pope.

For the second time in less than a month, the pope was rushed to Gemelli on Thursday with breathing problems said to be caused by a narrowed larynx.

“The Holy Father’s postoperative phase is taking place without complications,” and his general condition is good, the Vatican communique said. “The Holy Father is eating regularly, spends some hours in an armchair and has begun exercises to rehabilitate breathing and phonation.”

Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said there is no need to issue a daily bulletin and said another one won’t be issued until Thursday.