Hi Jeanie,
I think you have been through a hellish situation!!!
As explained the T4 is a vertebrae in your spine. All your nerves come from the base of your brain and through your spinal cord down your body and each vertebrae has a root of the nerves that comes through it and that root innervates (supplies nerve function) to the part of the body that it continues on to from each line in the nerve...I am gonna put some links here so you can follow a bit better.....I am a visual learner so hope it helps u as well....
lets start with the spine......
basic spinal anatomy......your spine is divided up into 4 distinct areas
1. cervical (neck) 2.thoracic (just below neck to middle of your back)
3. Lumbar (middle of the back to pelvis) 4. Sacrum which is basically your pelvis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Il...ral_column.jpg
there is great info on that site as well if you go to the rest of the vertebrae

now as for nerve innervation....here goes more pictures is best way to describe rather than me type and kill my arm and waste good space here...LOL
http://www.emory.edu/ANATOMY/AnatomyManual/back.html
great site for info but for now look at figure 14 at the bottom of the page this will show you how the nerves come out of the spinal column that protects them and goes out from there to the muscles and other areas of the body.....next site....
http://www.spineuniverse.com/display...ticle1275.html
this site explains how the nerves come out of the spine and go to smaller nerve branches.....it is complicated but keep it simple and stay with me here......
http://www.orthogate.org/patient-edu...erniation.html
this site shows how a nerve can be compressed by a disc that has been either compressed or ruptured due to an injury ie:car accident or injury.
There is other good information on that site.

okay so we have come a long way...more to go. after the nerve comes out of the spinal cord it will innervate areas and take info to and from areas that it goes to in the body...info in to brain and info out from brain.....
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-nerve-innervation.htm
(good other links there too)

which leads me to dermatomes.....now this is where most tos patients find help in describing which level of pain their compression may be coming from....some not but it really helps to explain the package we live in!
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-dermatome.htm
now that you know what it is here have a look at a picture of it.....
http://www.backpain-guide.com/Chapte...iculopathy.jpg
and another just so you get it....
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgur...a%3DN%26um%3D1
and another
http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~bluk/A...dermatomes.bmp
okay you are likely sick of that by now and overwhelmed!

so where do we go now that you have a little anatomy in your pocket....

Lets see how we can understand a bit more about what happened to you......

[IMG]file:///C:/Users/victoria/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG]so they said that T4 was out. Now that you know what it is if your T4 is out then it is likely that the disc may be out of place or the spinal process may be out of alignment. Because I don't know what brought this on or what you were doing at the time or what you have going on medically it is difficult for me to answer that question. I also don't know what medications you are on this may be key to why your stomach was having issues. If you are on any non steroidal anti inflammatory...like ibuprofen(aleve or advil) or aspirin or anything that may be irritating your stomach that may be what was causing that and not the T4 issue

Now I really don't understand when you say you had a trauma through your back.....what happened....was it as you described or did something you did bring on this pain ie were you in a car accident and this happened?? I can't really help without that kind of info.

As to your question about the T4 going into your lung....I'd have to know if the doctor meant the bone or the disc???? so mystery to me. He may have meant that your spine was out of alignment and the T4 vertebrae was moved and was closer to your lung. I think you may have heard differnent things from different people and are trying to piece together what it is you actually heard while you were enduring hell in the ER!!! It is not a great place for education. Doctors there patch u up and say go and see a........which ever doctor they feel you should see. Follow up is usually necessary in a case like this even at the very least to your PCP to get a referral to another doctor or to someone else who can help you.

The breathing will for sure be due to the T4 issue and it could also be due to the pain. Anxiety could also make your breathing this way. So hard for me to know without a full history on you or a report you gave to the doctor.

As for the doctors information to you about waiting I think I'd seek a second opinion on that one! I don't know what caused the injury to happen so if it is an ongoing thing or due to a trauma that just occurred you should see a bone specialist...or an orthopedic doctor...as they are known. I believe you have already been suggested that you see one ! GREAT idea
perhaps more is going on there and you need more investigations. The ER is great for a bandaid fix but not for a full diagnosis history and lets see how we can get you BETTER!!! ER is only that for patching up emergencies! Now don't get me wrong you were having an Emergency!!! I'd have called too. I just don't know what lead up to this event and that for me as a nurse is kinda important info to help you work out what is going on!

I do hope some of what I have done here is of help to you and given you a better understanding of how the spine works and the nerves and how they supply our body with much needed information.....it's all about the brain and the nerves!!! without them we are NOTHING LOL

Also not sure what you mean when you say this can happen to one in a million....to what are you referring????

Now I do have to ask.....do you see a chioprachter????only asking as sometimes if they don't know what they are doing and make an adjustment the wrong way things can hit the fan so to speak.....

take care and hope things are getting better for you.
gentle hugs,
Victoria