Thanks to all of you for reading my story and commenting....I wrote my story when I was 6 pounds away from a "liveable" goal weight back in July, and have since lost another 15 pounds and reached my ideal weight and size.

I was crying when I wrote my success story, and still have a hard time not getting teary eyed when I read it.

As an update, my father has regained 20 pounds in maintenance, but still doing very well and still medication free. He has meds for high BP on hand in cases of stress, but controls his diabetes completely by diet. He was recently cleared to drive again, which was the hardest part of his disabilities, and he was depressed for awhile thinking he would never have that independance again.

When he first came home from the hospital, he had some paralysis on his left side, his face had the look of someone "melting"...thankfully, that was the first thing to disappear. His vision was completely blurred, to a point that he could only recognize family members by our height and posture, could not identify even the color of our clothes or the number of fingers we would hold in front of him.

Over time, his vision improved to reading a newspaper with high powered glasses. He is now back to using his old reading glasses. Still has some problems with perifual <sp> vision, but it has now improved enough for him to drive again. He claims that his thought process IS impaired.....he's sharp, but has to think an extra second of two before his thoughts will "click".

Motor functions are completely intact. He walks and swims for exercise without any problems, but had to work up to building some endurance.

I saw him for the first time since I started my own LC WOL just last week. He told me I looked 16 again....and I happily gave him a huge hug and let him know how happy I was that he was still here....and thanked him repeatedly for being my own inspiration :-)

Lori aka MeBLady