I was officially diagnosed with ATOS by a vascular surgeon(Dr. Lum) at Johns Hopkins(we live in KY). I saw him at the beginning of December, then flew back on Dec. 30th for a scalene block and MRI. The surgeon emailed me the next day to say I was a good candidate for surgery. He will be doing a scalenectomy and 1st rib removal(L side). In the mean time, I saw a thoracic surgeon here in KY, he confirmed the ATOS diagnosis, and said he would do a first rib removal, when I asked about the scalenectomy, he said "Well, some of the scalene naturally gets cut during the procedure." Sooo, here are my questions that I need all of you wise people to help me figure out: 1) Is that right about the scalenectomy? Are these two surgeons talking about basically the same procedure, but just wording it differently? 2) It would obviously be more convenient to have the surgery here. We have a 6 year old and don't want to have to be away from him for that long. On the other hand, it IS Johns Hopkins, and I really liked Dr. Lum. The thoracic surgeon here was fine, older, seemed to know what he was talking about.

As ya'll can see, I'm a mess. I'm just grateful someone finally figured out what was going on with me. Now, I don't want my pain-addled brain to make the wrong decision. Help please?!