"I am invincible!!"

[PCIntern]

From the Bond film Goldeneye

There will be an unpredictable Deus ex machina. It is how things work: best laid plans and all that.

The fact is that an embolus which tests itself loose: a 4-5 mm hunk of fat or bacteria can change the course of human history. We have seen it in our lifetimes: the stroke, the cancer, the accident, the killer are out of our control or plans. Think about your own family: you’re at work or school or preparing to sit down to dinner and the phone rings. Everything is now different. It’s life.

I have been in practice now for 43 years and have lost over 11000 patients to the “eternal slumber”. It often comes out of the blue: just a few days following a visit I open the paper or get a call. It is surprising but no longer shocking.

Not everyone is Kirk Douglas, Olivia DeHavilland, the Queen Mother, or even Ruth Westheimer, despite what some frightened and politicized White House physician may say.

[Maeve]

1. There is an old legend of a king

whose advisor told him of a gift that could make him smile on his worst days and cry on his best days. The king asked what this magical thing could be.
The advisor gave him a simple gold ring. On it was engraved the words "This, too, shall pass."

[MineralMan]

2. As a man in my 70s, I understand exactly what you mean.

For a man in his 70s to say he is invincible is a laughable thing. For an obese man in his 70s, it is even more laughable. For a man with poor habits and obvious health deficits, it is a ridiculous thing to say or believe.

Donald J. Trump is an old man with all of those detrimental characteristics.

My wife says, every morning, when she wakes me up at 6 AM, "Trump is still alive." She gets up about 5 AM and has checked the Internet already.

One day, she will say something different, I imagine.

[PCIntern]

3. Yes and

one of my greatest upsets is that my brother died while the fascist was President. He didn’t live long enough to see him leave the WH. He was born into Roosevelt’s last term and saw it all through the Fifties and beyond.

[MineralMan]

5. I was born in 1945, a little over a week before the Hiroshima bomb

was dropped. That bomb and the beginning of the Cold War was FDR's doing as well, even though he was already dead when it fell.

Yes, it ended our War with Japan, but at what cost? That is a puzzle for which I have no good answer.

[Roland99]

4. "You're a loony" - King Arthur. Holy grail