Health issues

Hey guys,

I am sorry for having been absent for so long. Part of the reason is I have been really busy with my life outside of work: I attended Rotary District Conference in Östersund about a month ago and since then I have been touring Rotary Clubs in Stockholm and Gävle with a talk on cryptocurrencies (it has been received extremely well). I am also organising a weekly evening course on cryptocurrencies for my colleagues and friends. It's really fun and a handful of people have got their first Bitcoins, Ether and Dash thanks to it. I have confirmed and sold two new projects for my own company and was working on preparing those new projects. The first one is taking place tomorrow, another one in three weeks in Helsinki, Finland. And I'm volunteering with the Red Cross twice a month. So, as you can see, life has been quite busy over here.

Another part of the reason for my absence from Steemit is the state of my health. About a month ago I got a nasty eczema due to a new detergent I started using. It quickly spread across my legs, arms, hands, back and belly and it's been itching and keeping me awake on most nights for the past couple of weeks. (I thought of posting some pictures here as a proof, but trust me – you don't want to see them, haha!) At first I thought it was an allergic reaction to some food product, so I was eliminating a lot of the stuff I usually eat from my diet. As there was no difference, I tried to replace the new detergent with one without artificial colouring and aroma, and things have started improving slowly after that. I've seen a doctor and got a stronger cortizon salva and histamin pills to help with the itching sensation.

All of these – not sleeping well, worrying about causes for the skin irritation, changing my diet, freaking out about the possibility of missing SteemFest if my condition doesn't improve – have been draining my energy, so in the end I had nothing left for Steemit. Now, as I'm seeing signs of improvement and regaining hope for complete recovery, I decided to write this short update. The good part is that I'm definitely coming to SteemFest in Lisbon next week (don't wory – eczema is not contageous!) and my enthusiasm for Steem has never been greater.

I hope to slowly build up the rate of posting and commenting in the coming days – and I will definitely be covering my attendance of SteemFest – but please be patient with me, as I will need to take things a bit easy at first, until I am fully recovered and less busy with my side-projects.

Thank you all for checking in, sending messages of support and encouragement, being so understanding and patient, and being such great friends!! You are a living proof that Steem is different from any other platform in most meaningful and profound ways.

Much love,

Oleg

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