8. Pope John Paul 2
Pope John Paul II entered the papacy in 1978 as an avid sportsman, enjoying hiking and … attempts (one of which resulted in severe physical injury to the Pope), and a number of cancer scares, John Paul’s physical health declined. The first Pope to be photographed in a hospital bed, John Paul had surgery to remove colon cancer in 1992. Surgeons removed a large tumor from the colon of Pope John Paul II on Wednesday and predicted a complete recovery, although it will take four or five days to determine conclusively whether the growth is malignant. The 72-year-old pontiff underwent four hours of surgery at the Gamelli Hospital in Rome. He died in 2005 at age 84.