‘I only wish I could spare Nancy from this’

RONALD REAGAN, at 69, the oldest man elected president of the US, maintained a thumbs-up demeanour for the public during several bouts with illness during and after his White House term.

But in later years, as Alzheimer’s took a toll on his mental functioning, he was seen less and less. He died of the disease yesterday, nine years and seven months after he announced the diagnosis.

But his most traumatic health scare was on March 30, 1981, just 10 weeks into his presidency, when a would-be assassin’s bullet hit him in the upper chest.

The bullet, entering below the left arm, travelled downward and was deflected into the left lung, coming to rest an inch from his heart. He was rushed to a hospital and collapsed in the hospital corridor.

The bullet was removed during three hours of surgery, and Mr Reagan spent 12 days in the hospital. During his recuperation, he was photographed smiling in his robe and joked to wife, Nancy: “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

In July 1985, Reagan underwent surgery to remove a suspicious polyp from his colon. Two feet of the intestine was removed, and tests days later revealed that the growth was cancerous.

Mr Reagan also had surgery in his second presidential term for skin cancer (1985), enlargement of the prostate (1987), and for Dupuytrin’s contracture, a condition that caused one of his fingers to curve inward (1989).

Later in 1989, after leaving the White House, he was thrown from a horse and, weeks later, had neurosurgery to remove a pool of blood on his brain.

When he announced his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in November 1994, Mr Reagan said in a letter to the American people he hoped his disclosure would improve public knowledge of the disease.

“At the moment I feel just fine,” he wrote. “I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done.”

The incurable disease destroys the brain’s memory cells, causing personality change and disorientation.

“Unfortunately, as Alzheimer’s disease progresses, the family often bears a heavy burden,” Reagan wrote: “I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience.”

He wrote he was making the disease public for a purpose. “In the past Nancy suffered from breast cancer and I had my cancer surgeries. We found through our open disclosures we were able to raise public awareness. We were happy that as a result many more people underwent testing.”

At times during Mr Reagan’s stay in the White House, he seemed forgetful and would lose his train of thought while talking. However, doctors said Alzheimer’s was not to blame, noting the disease was diagnosed years after he left office.

On October 11, 2001 of that year, at the age of 90, Mr Reagan became the oldest surviving president, topping the lifespan of John Adams, the second president, who lived from 1735 to 1826.