George H.W. Bush to leave ICU
Barbara Bush leaves hospital, husband may be discharged Friday
Former president HOUSTON George H.W. Bush was to be moved out of the intensive care unit at Houston Methodist Hospital as former first lady Barbara Bush was discharged Monday, her doctors said in a morning news conference.
The former president had been in intensive care with bacterial pneumonia since Jan. 14, and Barbara Bush was hospitalized Wednesday with fatigue and coughing that later was diagnosed as viral bronchitis. The doctors said that the former president will be moved to a regular floor.
“He is sitting up and watching TV and anxiously awaiting his favorite oyster stew for lunch. He’s on minimal oxygen, joking and laughing with the nurses and doctors,” said Amy Mynderse, a hospitalist at Houston Methodist. A hospitalist works in internal medicine but exclusively at a medical center, working with a person’s primary care physician.
Both of the Bushes are in their 90s: The former president is 92, and his wife is 91.
Because the former president has bounced back so well, his doctors expect that he could leave the hospital as early as Friday, said Clint Doerr, his pulmonologist or lung specialist. But more likely he will be discharged over the weekend or next week.
Both Bushes are eager to return home in time for the Super Bowl, the doctors said. The New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons play Feb. 5 in Houston, and the family’s spokesman, Jim McGrath, said Sunday that the couple want to attend the game.
They watched the inauguration together with their son Neil and his wife on a TV in the former president’s room but refrained from political commentary, the doctors said.
Back in September, the elder Bush told Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy and a former Maryland lieutenant governor, that he couldn’t back the GOP nominee, Donald Trump, and instead would vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton in November.
He and Barbara Bush have not commented on their votes.
“She’s back to her normal self,” Mynderse said of Barbara Bush.
Barbara Bush’s doctors allowed the former first lady to spend much of her time by her husband’s side though she did have her own room outside of intensive care, the doctors said.
The Bushes have been married for 72 years, the longest of any presidential couple in U.S. history.
“She’s been sitting at his bedside getting most of her medications” as they watched TV, Mynderse said. And each has been encouraging the other through the sometimes tedious but necessary treatments.
“They kind of get after each other if one of them is being a non-compliant patient,” the hospitalist said. “They take care of each other.”
Although the former president has a form of Parkinson’s disease that keeps him from walking, both doctors stressed that he is a strong man for his age.
“Any time you hear about a 92year-old with a breathing situation that requires intubation, that’s a serious situation,” Mynderse said. “He’s also a very strong person. He’s not your average 92-year-old.”
Intubation is more serious than receiving supplemental oxygen via a tube in the nose.
The former president continues to receive some supplemental oxygen, and a device that’s clipped onto many hospital pa- tients’ fingers allows doctors to monitor the dissolved oxygen in a person’s blood easily.
During an intubation, a breathing tube is inserted into the windpipe, generally through the mouth, to open up the airway and allow a ventilator to be hooked up.
George H.W. Bush, vice president under Ronald Reagan and president for one term from 1989 to 1993, was put on a ventilator because of his breathing difficulties and at one point had a procedure to clear his bronchial tubes, the doctors said.
He also has been receiving intravenous antibiotics.
“It doesn’t take much from a respiratory standpoint to get into trouble,” Doerr said. His Parkinson’s did not play a role in his catching pneumonia.
The elder president Bush was hospitalized in July 2015 after he broke a bone in his neck during a fall at his Kennebunkport, Maine, summer home.
He also was hospitalized around Christmas 2014 in Houston for shortness of breath, and in 2012 he was hospitalized in Houston for two months including Christmas because of bronchitis and a persistent cough.
As the former president responded to treatment this time, the help that the ventilator was providing was decreased, Doerr said.
Before the tube was removed from his throat, the machine was at its lowest setting, essentially natural breathing with the option of additional assistance if necessary.
“We did not see a rebound in difficulty breathing ... or a reaccumulation of things in his airways,” the pulmonologist said.
Both doctors were struck by the humility of the couple who not only have occupied the White House but also are parents to former president George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
“They’re truly very humble people,” Mynderse said. “He just doesn’t feel like he is, he doesn’t understand how loved he is — her, too.”
George H.W. Bush is “a very strong person. He’s not your average 92-yearold.” Amy Mynderse, a hospitalist at Houston Methodist