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I'm baaaaaack!

Roger Tulk

Roger Tulk

Member
Messages
3,018
Location
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
I think some of you may remember me. I've been out of woodworking for sometime now since about the last time I posted. I've had 3 years of bad health and depression. The depression lifted off me somehow last November, and since then I've been trying to slowly get myself back to myself. I am pretty healthy, and feeling as well as I can be for a 74 year old type 1 diabetic ( I've had the disease for 57 years now.) I have some neuropathy in my index and middle finger and therefore I have to post using VoiceTyper. This may cause some of my posts to look a little wonky if I miss a mistake when I am editing. My son build me a new shed, it is 9 feet by 17 ft so I have my larger stuff all set up and there's room to walk around it which I didn't have in the old 8 by 10 shed. I'm busy removing rust from some items. Medications for the neuropathy are helping. I can use the drill press and table saw and I'm confident that I will be able to use the lathe as the medications are helping quite a lot. I am still happily married to my rock and salvation, Marion, who acts a little grumpy when she has to help me but gets angry if I don't ask for help. I guess that means she loves me. I sprouted some new grandchildren, now have a total of 5, 3 boys and two girls. They are all beautiful I can't wait to start making toys for them. My doctors all say and I have a good chance I'm living for quite a while yet, all six of them, so I hope to get some serious woodworking done.
 
I am truly overwhelmed by the kindness of your responses! Thank you so much, all of you. In my absence I have taken up archery as a hobby because I can do it while standing still. Because I like making things, I assemble my own arrows from parts, and also make my own strings. I started the hobby with a bow I made myself, but it broke and my kids bought me a very nice bow for my 70th birthday. I have added two more new bows, and I am making a string for my newest bow today. It will be red and white and I call it my "true north strong and free" string because all these American archers are making red white and blue strings and calling them "patriot" strings. Red and white are Canada's colours, we only get blue in the winter.
 
Bill Arnold said:
Welcome back, Roger! It's good to hear you'll be back in your shop.

What medication are you on for neuropathy?
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Bill, I have two medications, Pregabaline and Duloxetine. they are both antidepressants with an off-label use for neuropathy I also have Tylenol 2 for when the pain gets a little harsh. I already take an antidepressant and a couple of my other medications are also antidepressants with off-label uses. When my endocrinologist gave me the last of these and told me what it was I said, "Do I really need another antidepressant?" she told me it was a much lower dose than they would give me for depression, so I guess it's okay. She is a top-notch endocrinologist, so I know she knows what she's doing. She's also cute!
 
Roger Tulk said:
I started the hobby with a bow I made myself, but it broke and my kids bought me a very nice bow for my 70th birthday. I have added two more new bows
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I've been following /r/bowyer on reddit for a while, which is a pretty decent group of folks making bows and is super beginner friendly (this fellow has a ton of resources and is perhaps the most helpful person I've seen on almost any social network https://dansantanabows.com/). As an aside I think I learned as much about wood structure from reading "the traditional bowyers bible" series as I did from Hoadley's book (understanding wood), maybe it was just more immediately applicable. From the bowyer folks the one thing I've learned is that bow making is like a lot of other things and the more times you fail the more interesting your mistakes become and the better at it you get.

I still find some of the "why's" bow string making a bit baffling.. I guess I need to more of them and make a few wrong haha.

Anyway welcome back
 
Roger Tulk said:
Bill, I have two medications, Pregabaline and Duloxetine. they are both antidepressants with an off-label use for neuropathy ...
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Thanks, Roger. I first noticed my neuropathy about 30 years ago. A neurologist put me on Pregabaline(I think) starting on a Thursday. By Monday, I had basically been able to do nothing but sleep for four days. I called and was told I had no choice but to keep taking it. After another week, I again called the office to report being non-functional, was given no sympathy and told to keep taking the med. I stopped taking it so I could stay awake and never called the doctor office again.
 
right before covid hit I was having trouble at night with sleep. seems Id get all revved up at 11 pm, all the days and next few days things overwhelming me, so I told the doc. he put me on lexapro.
yeah, I slept, but not too long, I had horrible, nightmares, one night I woke up soaked in sweat, kicking and punching and fell off the bed. my wife jumped up and asked me what the hec is going on, I told her, you should have seen the other guy in my nightmare, the next day the doc told me to stop taking the drug. for a guy who stood behind a counter doling out those drugs for over 3 decades, taking all these meds were some experience for me, but the bulk of them do the body good, so sometimes one has to deal with a few side effects.
 
Bill Arnold said:
Thanks, Roger. I first noticed my neuropathy about 30 years ago. A neurologist put me on Pregabaline(I think) starting on a Thursday. By Monday, I had basically been able to do nothing but sleep for four days. I called and was told I had no choice but to keep taking it. After another week, I again called the office to report being non-functional, was given no sympathy and told to keep taking the med. I stopped taking it so I could stay awake and never called the doctor office again.
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I'm sorry to hear that, Bill. I have to say these two medications have been very good for me. Different Strokes!
 
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