A partial lung and colon surgery: the Pope’s health issues

Pope Francis, who is in hospital for treatment for a respiratory infection, admitted last year he needed to slow down faced with his age — now 86 — and increasing health issues. Here are some of the medical problems the pontiff has had during his life, from an operation in his youth to remove part of a lung, to the knee issues that have forced him to use a wheelchair. Lung operation When he was 21, the then Jorge Bergoglio almost died after developing pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissues that surround the lung. According to biographer Austen Ivereigh, surgeons…