RobinAnn

While I had no need to convince my doctor of anything (I was self-pay so didn't need her authorization), my husband did ask that I speak with my doctor and get her blessing (so to speak).

I was pretty nervous as my PCP was also the medical advisor for a Protein supplement diet program I was on three years ago. On the program I lost 90 pounds ..... and gained back 60 in short order.

My doc was happy that I was doing something to improve my health. While she had a vested interest in the other program, she is more committed to me getting and keeping my weight off. Her big regrets for me were the costs involved in my surgery (the initial costs and the travel costs for me for fills). We even discussed what we might do wrt my fill in case I had an emergency (350 miles away from my surgeon... or any fill doc).

If your doc has been witness to your weight struggles, I'd hope they'd be supportive of this tool for regaining your health.

As an added extra, my husband also asked that I talk with the dietician in charge of the previous program I had been on. (While that was very restrictive during the weight loss phase, it did have a wonderful foundation in healthy eating for "afterwards".) I had a wonderful chat with my dietician there, and while she wasn't really well versed in LAP-BAND® issues, she had supported many bypass patients in the past, so WLS wasn't a foreign or repugnant concept for her. She issued an open welcome to me to her support groups.

I have been very lucky to have great support from my medical team (except for the darn dermatologist that I had to see prior to my first, aborted surgery attempt.... but that's another matter....).

Adding myself to the list w/ a January 1 weight at the start.

Name*********Starting****Current******Goal******ToGo

Adjua....................347...............337...........240......... ....97

Angie64.................270...............270...........210....... ......60

Astrasmom............254...............254...........170............. .84

Babe....................265...............265...........199.... ..........66

Band_Groupie........172.5.............161.5..........158-148........3.5-13.5

BetsyB.................226.6.............215.2.........109...... ......106.2

BobbieND..............224................212...........150..... .......62

Brigette................198...............198............150.... ........48

Bristlecone............157...............157............130....... .....27

crzytchr................217...............217............180..... ... ...37

Dana36.................233...............229............160....... .....69

daqui26.................274...............274............200....... .....74

destined4thinness..215.5.............215.5..........150............65 5

Diamondgirl81........317...............317.............250............ 67

ericanda1973.........198.5............198.5..........130......... ..68.5

HummingBird..........204...............193.............150........ ...43

jenibeni.................224...............212..........165....... ....47

Jennih...................232...............232.............130.... ......102

KDEE....................240................240.............150...... .....90

kyleegirl01.............211................209.............160...... .....49

Lady LAP...............217................217.............125...... .....95

Lisa65...................174.5............167..............145..... ......22

Liz........................193.4............193.4...........155...... ......39.4

lotzasunshine.........247...............245..............175........ ...70

newdicarlo.............187...............177..............135...... . ...42

Northernmist..........289...............265..............175.......... ..90

ol55andahalf..........184...............184..............144...... ......40

RandaPanda...........194...............183..............150........ ....33

RAYNE913.............234...............234..............160........ ....74

RobinAnn.............232.4...............224..............160........ ....64

scoutmama............270...............270..............180........ ....90

shadst8............333...............317..............217........ ....100:thumbup:

skinny31................261...............258..............185..... .......73

SNDYCNRD.............207...............199.5............150..........4 9.5

sueinne.................220................220.............180.... ........40

Tabithan................244...............234..............190....... .....44

TARASGIRL.............305...............294..............225....... ......69

tdtucker................256...............256...............160...... . ....96

Teacher2010..........192...............183...............150...... . ....33

Tealeaves..............305...............289...............150...... . ...139

TeriLu....................215...............212...............150.. .... ....62

TIGGER71G............224...............224................130....... .....94

unshackled............277...............277................180....... .....97

Valerie.................190................190................150... . .......40

Well, I just navigated a major logistics FAIL.

I had an appointment scheduled with Dr. K for Friday, 2/19. A couple of weeks ago I realized that seemed too soon so I tried to schedule it for 2/26 but that was a no-go. OK, fine. I'll keep the 19th.

Hooked into Travelocity and got my flight/hotel/car JUST-SO. Plugging along through the month knowing I'd fly to Denver on 2/18 for my 2/19 appointment.

Last night I thought I'd get my travel stuff ready. UGH... my reservations are for the 25/26 of February.

Call Dr. K's office this morning... no, he's not in the office on the 26th. Cancelled the 19th and rescheduled for 3/12.

Luckily the change fee for the flight/hotel/car was reasonable ($100) and I was able to reschedule all for March.

Ugh....

But other than that, all is going well, I think. Slow going for me right now and I'm not quite sure why. Need to analyze what I'm doing a bit and see what's going on.

I think if we all combined our "can not tolerate" lists all that would be left is ice cream (and then the lactose intolerant would have issues).

Yes, if you previous insurance covered it, your coverage under COBRA would too.

I'd also add that you might choose to keep COBRA coverage longer that you might under ordinary circumstances (I know it's expensive) just in case something goes wrong post-surgery.

I'll give this challenge a shot.

Elfiepoo,

I've seen "NSV" on other posts. What does it mean? Rather what does it stand for. I get the meaning.

Non scale Victory

Perhaps our Canadian friends could consider Mexico. A bit of a vacation and surgery all rolled into one.

I have had 2 fills without numbing shot. Both were painless, but I suggest not looking at the needle. I just look at the ceiling and everything is a breeze.

This for me too (except I've had four fills). My doc inserts the needle while I'm lying down then has me sit to do the filling. Whatever you do (if your doc does it this way) do not look down and look at the syringe hanging off your belly.

Hi everyone,

I just have to butt in with a quick question:

For those out-of-towners, how do you travel from the airport to the doctor's office on the days of your fills? A cab price is around $125 (one way, yikes!), a car rental is around $100 (per day, that's the best I could find on Expedia) and a shuttle is around $25 (one way). But I can only find shuttles to near by hotels, not the office.

How does this all work?

Since SuperShuttle will take you from your house to the airport and reverse, I can't imagine why it wouldn't take you from the airport to Dr. K's office. Yep... www.supershuttle.com will take you to/from the airport to a business ($38 round-trip to Dr. K's office).

I've never used SS for my fills, but did use it numerous times when I DID live in Denver and needed airport transport from my home.

My doctor would not release me to a cab driver. I was told I needed a companion for 24 hrs post surgery (it was out-patient).

I know my doc's office could recommend a service that would "babysit" for those 24 hours if necessary.

My losses are -2.60/-1.00/-1.20/-1.00/-1.80/-0.60 for a total of -8.20

I probably won't make my goal of 12 but maybe 10.

I lost 1 pound this week. I'm scared of the next few days because I'm under a lot of stress due to the stupid class I'm taking. (The stress is all self-imposed but is still all-encompassing for me.)

I lost 1.2 this week.

Does anyone know the cheapest way to get from the airport to Dr. K's office AND BACK? I am flying in and out the same day for my fill and would rather not rent a car (unless it is much cheaper).

ANy ideas for me?

I've found a car to be cheaper...

SuperShuttle costs $19 each way. I've usually been able to get a car for .... what the heck has happened to car rental rates???? This fall I was able to get a car for approx. $25/day. Now they are showing in the $70s....

I guess I'd go for the SuperShuttle. SUPERSHUTTLE

Just wondering if we have certain days we should weigh-in. I understand the challenge starts 11/27. Hopefully I won't be up after Thanksgiving.....

Anyway - do we post each week? On a certain day?

For these "holiday" challenges, I tend to post my weight for the day the holiday is on. Valentines Day is on a Sunday, so I'll be posting Sunday's weights. (I weigh everyday anyway so it's not a hardship for me to post different days on different challenges.)

You of course can post any day you wish. :biggrin: Heck, you can post everyday if you want.

Glad you like it Mary. And glad you posted because that caused me to go look at it again and notice that I had the dates wrong (but you entered yours correctly). I changed the rest to match the actual dates of the challenge.

Here it is again (click the graphic below)

For those that like to track their own weight loss, I set up a spreadsheet for the Christmas Challenge.

I based it on the Halloween Challenge with a few changes.

There are columns for each week. If you like using the spreadsheet, you can report each weekly loss here. Of course you can continue to report your losses to Julie.

If you are comfortable sharing your weight, you can put your starting weight in Column C and your goal weight in Column E. If you don't like sharing your weight (and for most folks, I didn't know their start and goal weight), I just used the number of pounds you wanted to lose by Christmas as your start weight and zero (0) as your goal weight. So if you don't like sharing your actual weights, you can use your goal loss as your weight.

When it is your weigh-in day, you simply enter your weekly loss under the appropriate date and pounds lost/left to lose will calculate.

Have fun.... losers!

Spreadsheet here.

I tried on a sweater today that I had bought quite a few years ago to wear for Thanksgiving, but never wore it beacuse it was too tight. It fit! And the best part - its a medium!!! Woo! Woo!

Very nice!!! Congrats!! You're getting there.

~~~~

I'm .6 pounds from the Thanksgiving goal. I'm just keeping at it!

Another point to make and question.. does anyone know about the tax breaks for surgery and how exactly that works? I keep on hearing something about 7.5% of your income but I don't know anything about taxes.

Anything over 7.5% of your adjusted gross income (line 38) may be deductible using Schedule A.

As an example, if your income is $50,000, anything you spent over $3750 for medical expenses is deductible. This would include your surgery costs, any and all prescription costs, any doctor co-pays, mileage to and from any/all doctor/dentist appointments (24¢/mile), actual travel costs (air fare if you fly to your surgeon), etc.

When tax time comes around (or even before) be sure to think about claiming all your medical expenses. And remember, for this year when you are trying to claim medical expenses, it's not just your expenses that can be claimed... you can (and should) add in all the expenses for your spouse and children. Because of this self-paid surgery, this might be (hopefully) your only year where your medical expenses are deductible.

In past years I've always attempted to claim medical expenses but actually had a sigh of relief that I never had enough to claim them (that meant I was relatively healthy and didn't have huge expenses). Now that I had surgery this year, you are darn tootin' that I'm claiming them all.

Hi Julie... I'm down one (1) this week.

Confused...I thought today was the baseline weight for the challenge. Works for me that we're deducting though.

On the 5th Julie said:

For the challenge, you would weigh yourself on Friday (the beginning of the challenge) then every Friday after that. Post how much you lost and I'll keep track.

so I assumed the 6th was the starting date and the 13th was the first "reporting" day.

I lost 2.6 this week.

I'm actually down again and have only 3.5 pounds to go for the challenge.

A click on the hearts will take you to the Valentine's Challenge spreadsheet.

or go here http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkYQ5YZkmOeIdGZ0allWQ19oNkdHUzZXSkMxQ0lkVmc&hl=en