American Notes THE WHITE HOUSE

"It was like going to the dentist, only better," said Barbara Bush last week, after undergoing the first of ten consecutive days of radiation therapy at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She is being treated for Graves' disease, an affliction that inflames the thyroid gland and can cause bulging, watery eyes and double vision. After her session, she dashed off with characteristic aplomb to the White House pool for her customary 60 laps.

Last spring doctors administered a dose of radioactive iodine to slow down the First Lady's hyperactive thyroid. But treatment with a steroid, prednisone, failed to cure her vision problems. Should the radiation treatments (in which low-intensity rays are focused on swollen tissues behind the eyes) prove no more effective, the next step could be surgery.