A few years ago Uncle George had a heart attack while playing cards with some of his pals. Half the guys in the game had been through the same experience, so they had the good sense to call 911.

The ambulance rushed him to the hospital emergency room and he was in intensive care for a week, hooked up to monitors and intravenous drips.

When Uncle was finally released, his doctor gave him a big pep talk about diet and exercise and he started eating balanced meals and took up walking every day. He lost weight and started looking healthy and fit.

Uncle and I would meet at the park, for a walk, a couple of times a week, but after awhile he started making excuses. His feet hurt or he couldn't fit the time into his hectic retired life. After awhile he started putting on weight again.

We still saw each other regularly, meeting for breakfast and a catch-up on each other's lives. With one thing and another, I hadn't seen uncle for over a month, when he called and suggested we get together. I was surprised he wanted to meet at a new restaurant-not the comfortable old neighborhood greasy spoon we usually frequented.

I'd been into the old restaurant just a few days before and Beth the waitress, who usually served us with a big smile, acted strange and distant, almost as if she was afraid of me. She held the coffeepot at arms length and watched me suspiciously as she poured. I put it down to a bad day and reminded myself not to take it personally.

The day Uncle and I met for breakfast, I arrived at the new place early and had settled into a booth when I saw him open the door and come in. I have to say I was surprised at his appearance. It looked like he'd dropped 30 or 40 pounds. His old windbreaker hung off his shoulders like a deflated parachute.

There was something else different about him, something more than the weight loss. I noticed the way he looked around the room as he came up to me, with a kind of feral wariness that showed in his darting eyes and bared teeth. Like a wolf caught in the headlights of a pickup truck.

"You lost some weight," I said as he collapsed into the soft bench seat. He grabbed up the menu with an aggressive sweep of his hand and gave me an oddly menacing smile. "My new low carb diet," he said. "You should try it. Make you feel like a new man."

I leaned back and looked at Uncle. His face was flushed and his breathing was strained. He had tufts of hair growing out of his ears, which I'd never noticed before, and chest hair poked up menacingly from the front of his open shirt. What was happening to my lovable old uncle, I wondered?

When the waitress came, I ordered pancakes and sausages and Uncle asked for the T-bone steak and egg special with a side order of bacon and a slab of cheese. When the waitress asked if he wanted toast or potatoes he told her she could keep that crap to feed the birds.

I was shocked. I'd never heard Uncle talk to anyone like that before and I felt sorry for the young girl as she slunk away to fill our order.

We small talked until our order came and then Uncle ignored me completely while he devoured his food. Finally I broke the silence. "That's a lot of cholesterol," I said trying to make the comment sound casual, but he just growled something I couldn't quite hear.

"You were having a problem with your arteries," I said as he finished off his food and reached across the table for one of my butter containers, scooping it out and licking it off his knife.

"No problem," he said. "I'm taking drugs for that. Besides they're going to put some kind of brush in my veins and scrub them out." Then he looked across the table at my food. "You going to eat that sausage?" he asked spearing it off my plate with his fork.

Uncle had been gnawing on the bone from his steak and had set it down for a second when the waitress came along. "Done with that?" she asked reaching for Uncle's plate. He snapped at her like a mongoose after a cobra, his teeth grazing her wrist as she dropped the plate.

He didn't actually bite her, but the poor kid was totally frazzled. I saw her up at the cash register talking to the manager and gesturing towards our table. I suddenly realized why Uncle wanted to avoid the old greasy spoon.

That was six months ago and after a recent encounter with law enforcement, Uncle has been seeing a councilor who specializes in de-programming cult members and treating people with acquired eating disorders.

Now that he's on a less carnivorous diet his aggressive outbursts have subsided. The medical people say that the prognosis for complete recovery is excellent, although they admit that the excess ear hair is probably something he'll have to learn to live with.