Former President Bush Hospitalized in Houston

A cheerful and joking former President Bush left a Florida hospital Friday for one in Houston after spending the night for treatment of an irregular heartbeat.

Bush, 75, called his condition “much ado about not much.”

He had complained about lightheadedness at a photo opportunity in Naples, Fla., Thursday afternoon. He spent the night at Naples Community Hospital, then flew to Houston around midday before checking into Methodist Hospital here for more tests.

Doctors will investigate whether Bush’s thyroid disorder, called Graves’ disease, caused the irregularity. It was responsible for a similar episode while jogging in May 1991. The disease can be treated with medication.

His doctors said Friday that Bush’s heart was still in arrhythmia, meaning it was still beating irregularly.

In Houston, Dr. Mark John Hausknecht said several factors can cause irregular heartbeat, which he said rarely precedes a heart attack.

Hausknecht listed dehydration among possible causes, a diagnosis Bush seemed to concur with.

“We had a long reception, long dinner and I gave a long speech,” Bush said, referring to the Florida investors’ conference he attended.

Atrial fibrillation happens when the upper chambers of the heart contract extremely rapidly. That means they don’t pump blood properly into the heart’s lower chambers, which themselves speed up as they struggle to pump blood out of the heart.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley also suffers from atrial fibrillation, a condition he has known about since 1996.