By Polly Anderson
The Associated Press

President Reagan gives the "OK" sign from his hospital room after colon-cancer surgery in 1985. Associated Press file

Ronald Reagan, who at 69 was the oldest man ever elected president of the United States, maintained a thumbs-up demeanor for the public during several bouts with illness during and after his presidency.

The 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, traveled downward and was deflected into the left lung, coming to rest an inch from his heart. He was rushed to a hospital, complaining only of soreness in the rib cage.

The bullet was removed during three hours of surgery, and Reagan spent 12 days in the hospital. During his recuperation, he was photographed smiling in his robe and joked to his 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 but had not spread far. Doctors were confident that they had removed all the disease, and tests during the rest of Reagan's presidency showed no sign of cancer.

Doctors quoted Reagan as saying after the surgery, "Well, I'm glad that that's all out."

Reagan also had surgery during his second presidential term for skin cancer (1985), for 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, Reagan said in a letter to the American people he hoped his disclosure would improve knowledge about of the disease, as his past disclosures had raised awareness about cancer.

"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."