ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 2, 1996 TAG: 9612020131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHANDRA BANERJEE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOTHER TERESA'S LIFE, spent working for others, is in jeopardy once more.
Doctors monitoring Mother Teresa's kidneys and lungs today declared her slightly improved although still in critical condition after a heart attack and surgery on her arteries.
The 86-year-old nun, after feeling well enough to go home, had slipped back into critical condition Sunday. However, she was alert and chatting today, her doctors said.
``Mother is comparatively better at the moment than what she was yesterday,'' said Dr. Devi Shetty, chief heart surgeon at Calcutta's B.M. Birla Heart Research Center.
Doctors reprogrammed a pacemaker implanted in 1989 to strengthen her heartbeat, but because her condition had worsened they postponed drug treatment for making the heart beat more regularly.
At Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity home, the West Bengal state minister led Roman Catholic nuns and Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists in prayers for her recovery. Doctors have emphasized that the nun has impressed them before with her rebounds from what seemed to be fatal ailments.
The 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner has been hospitalized since suffering a mild heart attack Nov. 22. It is her fourth time in the hospital this year - the second for heart problems. Two others were for injuries from falls.
In her third such procedure since 1991, doctors performed an angioplasty Friday to remove blockages from two arteries. The procedure went so well that Mother Teresa thought she would be able to go home Sunday.
``You're done,'' she told doctors Saturday after the angioplasty, gesturing at the tubes and cables connecting her to medication drips, oxygen and monitors. ``Pull all these out - I look like a Christmas tree.''
Her condition was stable when she awoke Sunday, but weakened in the afternoon.
Doctors responded by reprogramming her pacemaker to strengthen her heartbeat so that her kidneys would function better, Shetty said, calling dehydration a concern.
Lung and kidney problems ``continue to be a major concern which could complicate her condition and recovery,'' the heart center. Mother Teresa suffered a chest infection and pneumonia in August.
Doctors postponed the drug treatment for her irregular heartbeat because of a slight risk it could worsen the other problems.
She has insisted on being home by Thursday, when a ceremony is planned for 64 women taking their vows as nuns, said Dr. Patricia Aubanel, one of seven doctors treating her.
Aubanel said Saturday that it was likely that deadline would be met. It was unclear whether Sunday's complications changed that.
Aides have taken over more and more of the day-to-day running of her Missionaries of Charity since Mother Teresa's health began to fail. The order operates 517 orphanages, homes for the poor, AIDS hospices and other charity centers around the world, including 169 in India. Its headquarters are in Calcutta, where Mother Teresa opened her first slum school in 1947.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP File. Mother Teresa hands out a medal to one of theby CNBfaithful who attended a huge Mass in Peoria, Ill., in December 1995.
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