Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush is being treated for a blood infection in a Houston hospital.
Bush, 93, was admitted Sunday morning to Houston Methodist Hospital after an infection spread to his blood, spokesman Jim McGrath said on Twitter Monday, the Associated Press reported.
The former president and vice president is “responding to treatments and appears to be recovering,” according to McGrath.
On Saturday, Bush attended the funeral of his wife, Barbara, who died at age 92. They were married for 73 years, the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history.
Bush has a form of Parkinson‘s disease and uses a wheelchair and electric scooter. In recent years, he has been hospitalized several times for respiratory problems, the AP reported.
McGrath provided no details about Bush’s condition and said further updates would be provided “as events warrant.”
In his eulogy for his mother Saturday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said his father was in the hospital at the same time Barbara Bush was in the hospital just before her death. At the time, those hospitalizations were not made public, the AP reported.
“I think Dad got sick on purpose so that he could be with her,” Jeb Bush said.
A year ago, Bush was hospitalized for two weeks due to pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. In January 2017, Bush spent 16 days in hospital for pneumonia. During that hospital stay, he spent time in intensive care and doctors inserted a breathing tube and connected him to a ventilator, the AP reported.
Bush also was hospitalized in 2015 after falling and breaking a bone in his neck, in December 2014 for shortness of breath, and at Christmas 2012 for bronchitis-related cough and other problems.
People in their 90s with Parkinson’s disease can be at higher risk for pneumonia and other infections due to swallowing problems, Dr. David Reuben, professor of geriatric medicine at the UCLA medical school in Los Angeles, told the AP.
“And the stress of losing a loved one can weaken the immune system,” he noted.
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