Haven't had surgery in Houston, but I have had two rib resections with Dr Ahn in Los Angeles. It wasn't bad, really. Certianly no problem compared to living with TOS.

If your problem is largely that of blood clots, you probably don't deal with a lot of pain on a daily basis. I've heard that people in your position feel better quite quickly. Expect a minimum of 1 week where you'll need help taking care of you, and another week or two of help with kids or other family, but after that, my experience was that I was pretty mobile. At 6 weeks i was definitley feeling as well as i did going in, adn started going uphill.

There is a lot of swelling post surgery, so you might have funny sx for a while directly following, but those will probably clear up.

Warm happy thoughts and best of luck to you.

Johanna