Pope alert, well a day after surgery

ROME — Pope Francis was “in good, overall condition, alert” and breathing on his own Monday, the Vatican said a day after the pontiff underwent a threehour operation to remove half of his colon.

Francis, 84, is expected to stay in Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic, which has a special suite reserved for popes, for about seven days, assuming there are no complications, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

The Vatican has given few details about the procedure, but an Italian newspaper reported, without citing sources, that surgeons began the operation laparoscopically, but ended up having to operate with wider incisions after encountering unspecified complications.

Monday’s brief medical bulletin — which came more than 12 hours after the end of Sunday’s surgery and contained the first details from the Vatican — mentioned no such complications. The Holy See said the pope needed the procedure because of a narrowing of a portion of his large intestine that doctors say can be quite painful.

When the Vatican announced Sunday afternoon that Francis had been admitted to hospital, it said the operation was planned.

“His Holy Father is in good overall condition, alert and breathing spontaneously,” Bruni said in a written statement, adding the operation lasted about three hours.

The procedure generally entails removing the left side of the colon and then joining up the remaining healthy parts of the large intestine. But the Vatican didn’t elaborate.

Doctors said a risk of the operation is that the connection between the parts of the colon can sometimes fail, causing pain and, possibly, an infection. Such a failure is very rare, but would require another surgery.

Without citing sources or specifying what happened, Rome daily “Il Messaggero” reported that “complications” arose during the surgery. The newspaper said that led surgeons to switch to operating through a larger incision.

Laparoscopy is often dubbed “keyhole surgery” and allows surgeons access with very small incisions. In the kind of surgery the Vatican said the pope was getting, laparoscopy is common, experts have said. Patients having laparoscopic surgery generally require shorter hospital stays.

Get-well messages continued to pour in for the pope. Italian Premier Mario Draghi’s office said he “expresses affectionate wishes for a rapid convalescence and quick healing.”