About 5 days post of of transaxillary rib resection on my right side for my crippling NTOS.
Surgery by Dr Reifsnyder at Johns Hopkins.

Spewing my story and looking for insight from other people who have had this surgery or even know a lot about it as well..

It's hard to tell how much immediate relief I have from the surgery thus far.
They did let me keep my rib, which they said was unusually wide. It looks pretty blade like to me too. Yikes!
There's still a lot of swelling and pain. A lot of the same nerve pain and lightening in the back of my neck, scapula, down my arm and into my hands. It Does immediately feel like a tight rope has been cut in my neck and it's no longer trying to crank my head down into my chest.. So I've got that going for me.

Anyone got any tips on how to manage the first few weeks before my post op appt and pt starts?
I don't want to risk losing ground on nerve recovery by not being proactive. Or retrain my body to do something that could be damaging.

My condition had deteriorated so much that my activity was already pretty limited to mostly staying in bed, family helping me cut my meals, dress, and drive Soong before surgery it was hard to take the aftercare instruction of "take it easy" seriously..

So turning to the people who actually Know things about TOS..
Any ideas and experience:
-Good arm positions? For sleep? Eating? Sitting?
-Good passive exercise? Scapula pulls? Neck stretchs?
-Any stretches? (I still feel something weird pulling back and forth behind my collar bone during muscle cramps and movement)
-I'm getting mixed instructions about whether or not I should wear a sling depending on what nurse I talked to while I was inpatient recovery. Did anyone have good luck with a sling? Or bad luck?
-Should I be encouraging more range of motion?
-Ice? Where did it work for you?
-pillows? I still can't seem to figure this arrangement out since leaving the hospital.
- any light low impact work outs work for you after surgery?( I had to stop jogging before, it pulled on my arm and neck nerves and wrecked me. )

Any "you would never think of it, but absolutely DO NOT try to do X!" Words of warning?

Thanks