Dr. Thompson did my surgery (cervical, first rib, and scalene resection and subclavian artery repair) in June 2012. I had a positive experience and have been doing well since surgery.

I was in the hospital 4 nights and then stayed 2 more nights at the Parkway Hotel after I was discharged before I could head home (needed to be there for follow-up appointments to get my drainage tube out and to meet with one of their physical therapists). My parents stayed at the Parkway the whole time I was in the hospital, and it really was very convenient since it is attached to the hospital. You can get a special rate if you are a patient or family/friend of a patient.

I would also recommend driving home. I am about 4 1/2 hours from St. Louis, and it wasn't a pleasant ride home (my mom drove), but it was definitely much better than trying to get on a plane.

As far as after the surgery, it's rough for a while. I had to be pretty careful to stay on top of the pain, but I was off pain meds by about a month out. PT was extremely helpful for me. Dr. Thompson's PT coordinated with mine at home which I think helped a lot. I was off work almost 5 weeks and could have probably used about another week. It just took a while to get my energy back and to get back on a normal sleep schedule, etc. Obviously it's been a while for me now, but I'm doing much better than before my surgery - less muscular pain, no worry about the aneurysm I had before it was repaired, no weird postures trying to compensate for the extra bones, etc. I'm very glad that I went through with it. I was extremely impressed by Dr. Thompson and his staff. I felt like I was in very good hands the whole time.

I did find that during the few months leading up the surgery I had a lot of anxiety - I guess that's probably pretty normal. It definitely doesn't mean that anything is going to go wrong. I had a lot of fear, but everything went very smoothly in my case.

I wish you all the best!