Bush hospitalized
Former president back in care after stint at Houston hospital with a blood infection
Former president George H. W. Bush was hospitalized in Maine with low blood pressure and symptoms of fatigue weeks after fighting off a blood infection.
Former President George H.W. Bush was hospitalized Sunday in Maine with low blood pressure and symptoms of fatigue, just weeks after fighting off a blood infection during a Houston hospital stay.
The 93-year-old is awake and expected to stay only a few days for treatment, according to family spokesman Jim McGrath.
“President @GeorgeHWBush was taken to Southern
Maine Health Care today after experiencing low blood pressure and fatigue,” McGrath tweeted. “He will likely remain there for a few days for observation. The former president is awake and alert, and not in any discomfort.”
Mayor Sylvester Turner voiced his best wishes from Houston, Tweeting: “On behalf of the city, I am sending prayers and positive vibes for a swift recovery. @GeorgeHWBush we know you love summers in
Maine, but Houston will always be your home. Get well soon and hurry back.”
The Bush patriarch, who has Parkinson’s disease and uses a wheelchair, flew to Maine on May 20 as part of a longtime family tradition. Except for his years in the military, he’s spent every summer since childhood at the family compound.
Last month, just a day after his wife was buried, Bush spent a little under two weeks at the hospital in Houston as he battled a blood infection.
“The 41st president wants to go to Maine,” McGrath said at the time. “He’s the most goaloriented
person on the planet, and I would not bet against him.”
He responded well to treatment and was released a few days later, despite his history of pneumonia and repeated hospitalizations in recent years.
In January 2017, one of his bouts with pneumonia forced him to miss out on President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under,” he wrote in a note to Trump at the time.
Though he was out of the hospital in time to oversee the
coin toss at the Super Bowl in NRG Stadium, he landed back in Houston Methodist for a couple weeks that April.
Yet, Bush has a long history of defying the odds, dating to when he survived his torpedo bomber being shot down over the Pacific Ocean by the Japanese during World War II.
As McGrath said last year, “There’s no one more resilient.”
After getting cleared to leave Methodist after his most recent stay, Bush got a visit in Houston from the cast of hit Broadway show “Hamilton.”
“A complete joy to welcome the ‘HamFam’ — the cast and crew of @HamiltonMusical — to our Houston office for a special performance I will never forget,” Bush tweeted on May 15, along with photos. “History never sounded so powerful.”