the CT scan (which encourages) and the smiles of the nurses – Corriere.it

“Slow but progressive improvement”. To understand the real health conditions of Silvio Berlusconi, on the 18th day of

hospitalization at San Raffaele, it may be useful to cross-reference information that comes from many places: understand exactly what is hidden behind the always measured words of the trusted doctor Alberto Zangrillo and the onco-haematologist Fabio Ciceri yesterday in the fifth medical bulletin, interpret the signals that arrive from outside the hospital and mix them with the indiscretions that come out with the dropper from inside pavilion Q. It is where the leader of Forza Italia has been since 5 April, first on floor – 1 in intensive care and from Sunday afternoon 16 April in the ordinary hospitalization ward.

Zangrillo and Ciceri are professionally and seriously prudent. The five medical bulletins issued mark the key moments of the hospitalization to date. The need for intensive care treatment for pneumonia and kidney failure, serious complications of chronic leukemia from which the founder of Fininvest and Mediaset has been suffering for some time but remained secret until April 5, the day when there are real fears for the life of the former prime minister. The positive response to the treatments that from April 10 triggers cautious optimism. The improvement of respiratory and renal functions of April 13th. The consequent exit from intensive care on April 16th. And the indication of that slow but progressive improvement of yesterday. The information that can be read between the lines tells us that Silvio Berlusconi has had a really bad time not because of leukemia, but because of his complications which now appear to be back and under control, but at the same time they nail us to a fact that is repeated over and over again: «Constant monitoring of functional parameters». This means that the Knight is indeed in a progressive recovery, but at the same time the typical unknowns of the situation cannot be ignored: we are talking about an 86-year-old man, with a physique whose immune defenses are put to the test and for which, for this reason, any infection can become problematic. The doctors never hid the delicacy of the situation from the family.

Then there are the signals coming from outside the hospital. The embrace between Marina, Piersilvio and Barbara outside the San Raffaele to represent the drama of the first moments of hospitalization. Luigi’s thumbs up telling of the recovery of hopes. The optimistic impulses of his brother Paolo with those words that often recur in the chronicles on Berlusconi’s health: “It’s a lion.” Zangrillo who finally allows himself a few hours away from the hospital on Sunday to watch a Genoa match of which he is president. These are indications that tension is easing.

Finally, the indiscretions of what happens inside the hospital give us the images that most of all show us two characteristics of the leader of FI regardless of any judgment on political activity: fortitude and willpower. The fortitude is in the jokes that Berlusconi returns to the nurses as if he had never stopped and in the hints of a smile that he never fails to address to the radiologists not even at the umpteenth CT scan (with encouraging results).
Willpower, on the other hand, is in the days punctuated by respiratory rehabilitation exercises to recover from pneumonia (which include vocal exercises that sound like songs) and by the efforts to get out of bed and walk with the walker. All this certifies once again the desire of the Knight to get back into the game. The surprise effect in his hospitalizations at San Raffaele is never lacking. Of course, it gets more difficult every time. No one can dare to make predictions about what will happen.