Former US president George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara Bush, remain hospitalized in Houston, where he was in intensive care for pneumonia and she was being watched after complaining of fatigue and coughing.
The 92-year-old former president was placed in intensive care on Wednesday and underwent a procedure “to protect and clear his airway that required sedation,” family spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement.
George Bush was stable and resting comfortably at Houston Methodist Hospital, McGrath said, adding that the 41st president was placed in intensive care to address “an acute respiratory problem stemming from pneumonia.”
He later told reporters that doctors were happy with how the procedure went.
George Bush was first admitted to the hospital on Saturday for a shortness of breath.
“I don’t think there’s a whole lot of money to be gained betting against George Bush,” the spokesman said. “We’re just kind of in a wait-and-see mode.”
McGrath said Barbara Bush, who is 91, had not been feeling well for a couple of weeks and decided “to take it out of committee and have the experts check it out.”
He described the move as precautionary.
Physicians initially believed the former president would be released later this week following several days of treatment, but his stay has been extended, McGrath said.
There is no timetable for his release from the hospital.
Doctors want to see how the former first lady responds to treatment before allowing her to return home, he added.
The Bushes, who were married on Jan. 6, 1945, have had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in US history. At the time of their wedding, he was a young naval aviator and she was a student at Smith College.
After World War II, the pair moved to the Texas oil patch to seek their fortune and raise a family. It was there that George Bush began his political career, representing Texas for two terms in the US House of Representatives in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
George Bush, who served as president from 1989 to 1993, has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility. He was hospitalized in 2015 in Maine after falling at his summer home and breaking a bone in his neck.
He was also hospitalized in Houston in December 2014 for about a week for shortness of breath. He spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues.
Despite his loss of mobility, George Bush celebrated his 90th birthday by making a tandem parachute jump in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Last summer, Bush led a group of 40 veterans on a fishing trip at the helm of his speedboat, three days after his 92nd birthday celebration.
George Bush’s office announced earlier this month that the couple would not attend US president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration because of the former president’s age and health.
“My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under. Same for Barbara. So I guess we’re stuck in Texas,” Bush wrote in a letter to Trump.
Their son, former US president George W. Bush, still expects to attend the inauguration and does not plan to travel to Houston, spokesman Freddy Ford said.
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