My Fellow Septuagenarian: The Sick President

Well, the President is in the hospital.  And I am forced to sit and wait for updates on his condition.  This makes me edgy because, while I think he has been an incompetent and destructive “leader,” I can’t help but identify with him a little.  We are the same age, both born in 1945, both 74 years old.  He is my fellow septuagenarian. There is something to that connection; not everybody gets to be one. So hearing about his condition and how he is doing seems a bit like a forecast of how I might do under similar circumstances.

I mean from the beginning of his pandemic thing, I have been made acutely aware that I belong to the group most vulnerable to death by this plague.  Over and over again, I see that 70 percent of the people who die from COVID are over 65, and the older you get the worse your chances are.  So I identify with the President on this score, and quite irrationally feel that if he being well over 65 and obese on top of that,  manages to recover from this attack of the plague, I too over 65 years of age, but not obese, may also recover should I catch it.  Somehow the thought of his getting well gives me a feeling of hope.

But, as I said, this is all irrational.  Were I to get this plague I would not have the best medical minds of the age on my case.  His getting better will not magically increase my chances of getting better.  And this failure of identification reminds me that I would probably not have to be as anxious as I am about this plague if he and his atrocious crew had not been so completely incompetent and deluded in their handling of the plague in the first place.

So I remain edgy and waiting for the next update.

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