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‘I’m still alive,’ says Pope Francis after operation in hospital

Pope Francis thanked a nurse for saving his life, in an interview given after he left hospital following an intestinal operation.

“A nurse saved my life,” he told Cope, a Spanish broadcaster. He said the nurse was a man who had a lot of experience and, moreover, that it was the second time that a nurse had saved his life.

The first time that the pope was referring to was in 1957, when he had part of his right lung removed following pneumonia.

Cope published the interview excerpt on Monday, with the interview to be broadcast in full on Wednesday.

Asked how he was doing, Pope Francis jokingly responds, “I’m still alive.”

As rumours persist that the pope wants to resign, he also said that whenever a pope falls ill, it triggers a “hurricane.”

The interview was the pope’s first since he was discharged from the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome in early July. Part of his intestine was removed during a planned operation due to a condition that can cause severe abdominal pain.