The Waiting Game

Yesterday was a pretty big day for me as I went to my three-month checkup post-lapband surgery and also visited the audiologist at Mercy Hospital to get my shiny new hearing aids.  Yes, I'm officially an old woman.

I'll address the hearing aids first.  Hearing loss is something I have dealt with pretty much my whole life, not my own hearing, but my mother's.  She has worn hearing aids since her mid-thirties and has had a cochlear implant in her right ear for the past five years.  My little four-year-old cousin also just got hearing aids when doctors realized she had severe nerve damage in her ears a few weeks ago.  Hearing loss runs in my family and I've known for about 7 or more years that I, too, would need to do something about it.

I went for a hearing test back in November and have severe to profound hearing loss in both ears.  My left ear is slightly worse than my right.  I had been teaching classes at work and had to start telling the class participants to wave me down if they had a questions or I would just keep talking.  I realized that when I had to start telling people that I didn't hear well, that it was time to get it looked at. We ended up moving back to Missouri before I could get my hearing aids so I went to the audiologist at Mercy in May to get the ball rolling again.  One of the main reasons I went to Mercy is because that is where my Uncle also went to get his the year before.  We have the same insurance and he ended up not having to pay as much as he thought so I was hoping they could do the same for me.

Unfortunately, I won't know how much the hospital will cover in "write-offs," but it is a possibility they will cover more than the measly $400 from my insurance.  EACH hearing aid is $3,500 so you can imagine after already paying more than $6,000 for lapband surgery, we are really hoping to get more than just $400 taken off of a $7,000+ hearing aid bill. Yesterday, I only had to pay a $500 deposit and then once they process the insurance and everything else, we will receive the remaining balance that we owe.  Hoping it's a low number or else Mom and Dad will be having us as their roommates for a lot longer than originally planned. :-)

Now on to my three month check-up.  In some ways this past month has been pretty disappointing... mainly on the scale.  I am only down three pounds since last month.  Though there are many areas that have changed pretty drastically over this past month that are keeping me motivated and excited about the future.  It's hard for me to really picture myself at my goal weight of 150 lbs.  It just seems so far away.  Heck, the 100s seem so far away, but I know I will get there eventually.

I feel like I'm just waiting... doing a lot of physical activity while I wait, but waiting nonetheless.  And waiting is exactly what my mom and I did yesterday morning.  My appointment was scheduled for 9a and we finally saw the doctor at 11 for my adjustment!!  We weren't very happy.  Though once we were able to see the dietician and doctor, everything went pretty smoothly.  Even though I am disappointed in the lack of weight coming off the scale, they say I am making progress and doing great.  Though they do agree that I am not yet restricted because I am getting hungry more often than I should.  And I'm eating a full plate of food-- eventually I'll get full off of much less than that.

So the adjustment this time was a little different than the last two.  The doctor said they went to a seminar where they said it's a good idea to take out all the saline when you do the adjustment so you can see how much is in there (what your baseline is) and then put it back in.  I'm so glad they did that!  Turns out that there was already 3.25cc in my band from surgery so when I thought I only had 2.5 in my band that holds 15, I actually had 5.75!  I've been reading online where most people are in "the green zone" around 6-8 cc in their bands.  That means I am so much closer to being there than I thought.

Since 5.75 still wasn't giving me much restriction at all, she went ahead and put .75 more in.  So now I'm sitting at 6.5 cc and am hoping to get full off of much less.  I only ate soup yesterday and had mashed potatoes for breakfast this morning because I want to ease into eating solid foods just in case I feel restriction that I haven't felt before.

So while the scale didn't necessarily move as much as I wanted it to, I have made a ton of progress with losing inches, firming up and getting in shape.  I have now exercised 73 days in a row on my way to my 90-day goal and I am definitely getting stronger through my crossfit workouts. So instead of just going off the scale, below are the inches I've lost in my three month journey so far:

Totals Lost:
Weight: 30
Thighs: 5.25 inches
Waist: 6.5 inches
Hips: 4.5 inches
Arms: 4.5 inches

Looking forward to the month ahead and hopefully moving the scale along to reflect what I'm feeling on the inside and starting to look like on the outside.