Seeing The Difference

Last August when Ben left I set out on a goal to lose 100 lbs before he got back. Well, that didn't happen. Losing a small 2 lbs a week isn't as easy as it sounds. I am excited to report that I have lost 25 though. That may or may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is huge for me. I've always had trouble losing weight, but no trouble putting it on. That is partly due to me having PCOS. But between exercising, changing my eating habits, and starting a medication for my PCOS, it has been amazing. I will admit, I've been a bit of a slacker the past few months when it comes to working out. I don't go to the gym nearly enough. But I haven't put any weight on in either. So I guess in a way it kinda balances itself out.

A before pic. This one was taken about a week before Ben left.

An after pic. This one was taken about 2 months ago.

It's so good to feel like I have partially achieved my goal. I feel better, I look better, and some certain things have become more "normal" meaning hopefully we're going to have some very exciting news to share in the near future. :)

Heidelberg, Germany

So it turns out Ben going to Germany hasn't been such a bad thing. He's been very well taken care of by the doctor there, and he has gotten to do some sightseeing. We've always wanted to go to Germany (not necessarily this way...), so this has been good for him. They really take care of the soldiers that are medevaced there. So even though I'm jealous that I can't be there with him, I'm glad he's doing better.

Saturday there was a trip that he got to go on that went and did some sightseeing in Heidelberg. He got to go to an old castle and on a river cruise. He had a good time and took tons of pics for me. Over 100. So I thought I'd share some of them with you. :)

Chillin' on the couch before leaving. Group photo.



Look at that handsome man. :)

Yup he took this photo. View of the country side.

Really cool pic.

Ben thinks we need to be stationed in Germany now. And from the looks of the pictures he took, I think it could be really fun. We'll see if we make it there though. Gotta finish our time in Japan first. :)

He's Leavin' Germany...

TOMORROW!!!! He'll be flying out of Germany Tuesday (Germany and Japan time) and should be here sometime Wednesday (Japan time). We don't have exact flight info right now, but he'll go get that shortly. YAY!!!! I am so excited! Seriously, this is the happiest I've been in a while.
So he had his colonoscopy today, and the doctor did some more biopsies. We won't know the results until Friday, but they are going to let him come home tomorrow. He wanted to keep him until Friday because he thought Ben was supposed to head back down range (back to Kuwait), but he's not eligible to be there (for medical reasons). His unit will be home in a few weeks anyway. The doctor is pretty sure he has Chrone's, and because of the kind it is he thinks the kidney stones are probably a side effect from it. So if we can get one or the other taken care of, it should help the other too. It is soooo good to finally have some answers. FINALLY! A doctor who knows what he's talking about!
I have some pics he took Saturday from a trip he took with some of the other "Wounded Warriors". I'll try to get that done in the next couple days, if not tonight. It might be tonight since I'm pretty much too excited to sleep now. He's coming home! No more dumb deployment! WOO HOO!!!

Good Bye Kuwait

Ben is in Germany now. He was finally able to say good bye to the hot desert of Kuwait. They medevaced him out this morning. It was a long and not so comfortable flight. One of the flight doctors ended up giving him an IV while in mid-flight. Poor guy. But he survived the flight and made it to the hospital. He met with the doctors and discussed what's gonna happen now. They will do another colonoscopy Monday. His doctor in Germany is not happy with his doctor in Kuwait. With his last colonoscopy the doctor/surgeon didn't record what he found or include any pictures or anything, hence why they are doing it again. He's not to thrilled with that and I don't blame him. The doctor in Kuwait also didn't do a great job with the meds he's on. He put Ben on several meds to treat several things, but none of them were strong enough to really do anything for him. So this new doc put him on a stronger pain pill and we'll see if it helps. So he'll be there until at least Monday, probably more like Tuesday. Depending on what they find with the colonoscopy and how he's doing with the pain, will determine where he goes next. If the pain gets better they'll send him back home to me in Japan. If not, they'll send him back to the states, probably Hawaii, via a military flight so he can have a flight doc go with him. I'm hoping he's feeling better and just comes back to Japan. I'm so ready to see my husband again. And his new doc is really trying to help him. So hopefully we get this all figured out and taken care of quickly. So cross your fingers, pray, wish on a star, whatever it is you do, and we'll hope he's home next week.

Headed to Germany

Ben will be headed to Germany within the next couple days. They released him from the hospital Wednesday, but hasn't really gotten better. His commander made him go to the ER Thursday, and the dr there put him on quarters for 48 hours and said if he came back he would be medevaced out. So he was off Friday and Saturday and went back to work today. He and a few others tried convincing the commander to just send him back to Japan, but being the retard (I have meaner names for him but I'll keep it clean) he is, he made Ben go back to the ER this afternoon. So guess what, now that the drs are involved he has to be medevaced out. He'll go back in in the morning to finish the paperwork and will be off to Germany within the next few days. From there, they will more than likely have to send him back to the states because they don't have the drs he needs to see in Germany. They don't have them in Japan either, which is why they won't send him back here. There's a very small chance that they may send him from Germany to Japan and then on to Hawaii, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. But we have no idea how long he'll be in Germany or the states. I don't know when I'm going to get to see my husband again. We were so close! The end of the deployment was in sight. He was supposed to be home in a month. Now I don't know if I'll get to see him then or not. This sucks! I'm trying really hard to stay strong and positive, but I don't know how much longer it's gonna last.

Diagnosis

They are releasing Ben from the hospital today, and we have a pretty good idea of what's going on now. The colonoscopy went well and wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. Probably because they gave him a sedative that knocked him out. They did some biopsies that have to be sent to the Pathologist in Germany, so it'll be a couple weeks before we have any definite answers. They do think it's a mild case of Chrone's though. There's not really much they can do for it other than treat him with lots of pills. So he's taking like a hundred different pills (ok closer to 20 but still a lot). We don't know what causes it, other than it is genetic and hereditary. But they think that the Naproxen he takes for his shoulder causes it to flair up. He'll be staying with his unit in Kuwait and shouldn't have to go to Germany. It's so close to them coming home now, that it would probably take longer for him to get back to Japan if they sent him there first. So he'll just stay all drugged up for now. We'll go to the dr here when he get's back and see what we're gonna do from there. They don't have a Gastroenterologist here in Japan so they may have us move back to the states where he could be seen on a regular basis by the specialist. Oh darn, we might have to leave Japan. (Note the sarcasm... I'm sooo ready to go back to the states.) So that's what we know now. He is doing better and sounding like he's feeling a lot better. Now if we can just make the next month fly by instead of crawling like it has the past couple weeks, we should be all good.

Update on Ben

Here's the latest news:
Ben is still in the hospital in Kuwait. He passed the two stones he had over the weekend, but was still in a lot of pain. They did another CT Scan yesterday (this one with contrast dye) to see if the pain was possibly caused by something going on with his intestines. They found out two thing. 1) He has another kidney stone. We'll be going to the dr here in Japan when he gets back to see if we can figure out what's causing these. It's kinda ridiculous how many he gets and how often he gets them. 2) There is some swelling of the colon on his left side. So the next step is they give him some stuff to completely clean him out this afternoon/evening and they do a colonoscopy tomorrow. Neither which sounds fun to me. Right now they are thinking it's either Colitis (an infection in his colon) or Chrone's Disease (google it because I don't understand it enough to explain it yet). If it's colitis, they can continue treating him in Kuwait with antibiotics and such and he should be good in a couple weeks. If it's Chrone's Disease (which we are thinking it might be), they will do all they can for him in Kuwait, but will probably end up sending him up to Germany and then back to Japan. It's been thought before that he has Chrone's but for some reason it was ruled out. Not sure when or by who, but it's been a possibility before nonetheless. So he may end up coming home early. It wouldn't be much earlier since they'll be home in about a month anyway (sometime between Aug 21 - 25 are the dates we have right now). So yeah. That's what we know right now. They've got him on Prednisone and something else to help with the pain and everything. It doesn't take the pain away, but makes it more tolerable. But until they do the colonoscopy tomorrow we don't know much else. It's nice to have an idea of what's going on though. And we're both glad he finally went to the dr. He wasn't going to go, and just kept putting it off because he thought it was just kidney stones, but the pain finally got to the point where he had to go. I wish he wasn't so stubborn when it comes to stuff like that, but then I'm the same way so I really shouldn't be saying anything. We are seriously going to have the most stubborn kids on the planet. :P But anyway, as soon as we know anything else I'll update again.