I'm really glad to hear your hands are fully functional again - that was
really depressing after seeing what you can do with your guitar building.
Good for you!

Getting rid of some extra corpulence is a good thing indeed, especially having
been diagnosed with high BP and steatosis. You're moving in the right
direction on so many levels. And the improve gall bladder function - it's
fascinating that something like tumeric and milk thistle might be responsible,
but perhaps it's also because you're being good to yourself.

I've been diligently "protecting" the profound weight loss I experienced on
therapy - I went from almost 240 down to 190 before I finally finished
treatment, and I'm still just under 200 now, 2 years since EoTx. Serendipity!

I haven't had a bite of "fast food" in almost three years now, and I swore off
downing a quart of ice cream a day - I think that has a lot to do with it ;-)
Down side: I look ridiculous in most of my clothes, as I dropped at least five
inches off my waist so my pants now all look "cinched". I should get rid of my
belts and just use a piece of rope to sell the whole po' boy look ;-)

So you're now the Tie-Dye Man of the Great White North? Cool beans - have you
put any of your work up on the web anywhere? I'm thinking I could use a really
neat new tee. Having been a typical long-haired-hippy-freak in the late 60's
and early 70's I had my share of tie-dyed stuff, and just recently noticed
what looks like a mini-resurgence of the style in stores here in New England.

As for your regrets about spending more time "here" and less time with your
peers - it sure sounds like you didn't have much of a choice at the time.
Without some solid place to turn, it sure makes sense you'd hang here. It's
also very cool you're taking on some of the effort of establishing the type of
support group you were missing. I think that's awesome.

I think I can relate to the character evolution thing: surviving treatment
sure seems to have left me....."changed"...in many ways. I've found I'm *much*
more sensitive to what others are feeling - and not restricted to fellow
members of the human race, either.

We usually have a number of nesting birds on our property - all kinds, from
house finches to wood ducks in the pond - and this year it was like I could
sense all of the angst that the birdy parents were going through trying to
raise a clutch successfully. One robin family, in particular, who were nesting
in the ceiling of our first-story deck (which is also the floor of our
second-story deck) went through three clutches of eggs before yielding one
successfully fledged offspring, the interim babies falling prey to hawks and
fishers and goddamned house cats. The whole thing left me an emotional wreck
for days, and my wife accused me of "going soft in the head" ;-)  

Meanwhile, another robin family under the same deck got all four of their
first clutch launched successfully and cleared out of town months before the
other family finally could pull up stakes and head further north. I actually
saw one of the babies experience a "eureka moment", when after more than a
week of being out of the nest and begging dad for food, it figured out where
worms come from and snagged one on its very own.

Yin yang. I was as happy for them as I was sad for the others.

Now we have House Finch babies all over the yard, the cat-birds are sitting on
their second round of eggs, the grackle babies are learning to eat from the
feeders, the mourning doves and blue jays are apparently still nesting, the
Gold Finch families keep cleaning out the thistle seed feeder - and the hawks
come by at least twice a day and scare everyone to death...

And I think I'm dealing with a delayed nesting instinct of my own: beginning
with the last 3 months of therapy, I've been remodeling/redecorating/improving
the homestead at a near frantic pace. So far, I have, in the order listed:

o   replaced 34 of the cheapest interior doors you ever saw with decidedly
upscale doors. I actually started this while still on treatment, as a kind of
physical therapy to restore my manual skills - as treatment really f.cked up
the strength in my hands (and pretty much everywhere else, for that matter)

o   built a fancy new laundry room and a third bath

o   remodeled the guest bath - tossing out the cheapest vanity base cabinet
you ever saw - then built a new framed-style 60" long vanity with raised panel
doors and drawers (with those "magnetic" drawer closures), all of the solid
wood parts made from one BIG piece of maple and the case work out of birch
plywood; stuck a nice granite top on it with an underslung sink and a fancy
fixture; replaced the tub and toilet - and had to chop out the nightmare of an
original plumbing job and replumb most of the bath

o   tore off all of the old (cracked, spalled and rotting) siding from the
south side of the house, fixed a number of original-build defects, then
Tyvek'd, resided, calked and stained

o   built an old fashioned screen door out of oak for the front entrance.
It's a thing of beauty - especially compared to the aluminum storm door I got
rid of.

o   tore up the carpeting from one end of the house to the other, put down
real plywood underlayment (because the nitwits that built the house put the
original carpeting right down over pine subflooring!) and had all new
carpeting put down (the only thing I had someone else do so far)

o   rehabilitated the master bath, putting in new fixtures, updated wiring and
plumbing

o   repainted the living room, dining room, kitchen, all three baths and all
four bedrooms and all hallways. Goddamn, I hate painting now! ;-)

o   put up ceiling fans in the living room and two of the bedrooms (will get
to the others shortly)

Meanwhile, the list of things to do seems to grow - with expensive items, now.
We want to gut the kitchen (and get rid of the cheapest kitchen cabinets you
ever saw - sensing a theme here, yet? ;-) push the dining room out into an
addition so we can expand the kitchen plus provide a breakfast nook kind of
dealie. And the SO would really like to add more room to the master
bedroom/bathroom, which might yield the third garage bay I'd like to have.
Woof. Everything I've done so far was relatively inexpensive compared to
those...

So....That's pretty much what's been going on. I hang here to help where I can
- giving back to the group that got me into and through therapy. My life is
remarkably simple these days - not that it was all that complex before, but
I'm finding small pleasures in the work projects that tend to keep me home
instead of finding reasons to roam.

Although I *will* drag my wife out to see The Simpson's Movie tomorrow ;-)

Cheers - and stay well, my friend.

/greyhackles