«White blood cells high again, difficult to predict how many days it will take»- Corriere.it

White blood cells high again, admission to the hospital on Friday 9 June around 3pm for a control scan, the need once again for prudence. Thus Silvio Berlusconi’s pit stop at the San Raffaele is transformed into a shelter which is currently difficult to predict the duration. A few days, but maybe more.

The return of the leader of Forza Italia on the first floor of pavilion Q just 21 days after the toughest resignation ever is proof of what we already knew: his return home after 45 days in hospital, from 5 April to 19 May, would have been accompanied by close medical checks (as well as continued pulmonary rehabilitation exercises to reduce the damage of the pneumonia that triggered life fears). If, therefore, the scalping to return to the family in the end has the upper hand, the former prime minister remains at Villa San Martino in Arcore under the constant supervision of the usual doctor Alberto Zangrillo and the onco-haematologist Fabio Ciceri.

His condition as a leukemia patient with an already complex previous clinical situation dictates it, and common sense says so: he is an 86-year-old man immunosuppressed, tried by the disease, long and difficult, even if the fortitude remains intact. It is in this context that the two doctors decided on Friday, as the bulletin issued by the hospital makes clear on the same day, June 9, «to anticipate already scheduled hospital checks». A choice, it is specified, that «responds to clinical criteria of normal practice in medicine e it is not related to any criticality or alarm». “The tests planned in relation to the known haematological pathology”, again to refer to the bulletin, and brought forward on the decision of Zangrillo and Ciceri, lead to a new hospitalization, with the consequence that skip the lunch set in Arcore with the ministers for Saturday, a summit planned to talk about the reorganization of the party. Stop.

No return, however, in intensive care by Silvio Berlusconi as erroneously circulated by ill-informed people or by those who want to exasperate the already complicated situation in itself. Let us remember how the leader of Forza Italia resigned on 19 May: just a few hours before leaving the hospital around 13, those closest to him know that they are possible, even probable, but not certain. Until the very end. They are preceded by an information blackout, the doctors in silence, no official announcement.

The reason is that making predictions in the situation in which Berlusconi finds himself is almost impossible. Then as today. For seriousness and for unpredictability of the clinical picture. It is the ground on which the leader of Forza Italia is used to surprising: «It was an anguished and difficult period, but after dark I won again», wrote the leader of FI to his loyalists on that occasion: «The nightmare is over». The fears for life, the hectic days, the exams out of control, then yet another sigh of relief, up to the exit from intensive care after 11 days and even the return home.

But the problems remain, such as the tenacity of the former prime minister in dealing with them. It is in this narration that the current hospitalization must also be included: a pit stop of a few days which, however, can be prolonged and whose duration depends on many factors. The main: the trend of white blood cells still very high, the result of the other tests in progress, the need to avoid the spread of new infections which could obviously become dangerous, the opinion of the children always taken into consideration by the doctors even if in the end they rightly have the last word. The scenography studied in detail in the video broadcast at the FI convention on May 6 and the one with the invitation to vote for the local elections of May 14 and 15 are not able to mask the signs of the disease. Which makes everything more difficult, but always possible. There are no new alarms or new critical issues, but the situation remains delicate. And they go back to the I’snstagram of the premier Giorgia Meloni and the leader of the League Matteo Salvini the encouragements: «Come on Silvio!».

The Political Diary newsletter

If you want to stay updated on political news, subscribe to the newsletter “Political Diary”. It is dedicated to Corriere della Sera subscribers and arrives twice a week at 12. Just click here.