Thank you all for your suggestions! I have an old recliner that I'm not quite sure if it will work or not but I'm going to try in the next couple of nights to see if I can sleep in it (fun fun). Any particular way of propping pillows around you helped better than others? I have a squishy bead U shaped pillow I bought from Walmart that I already use at night on my neck (I look like I'm the pole that someone made a lucky throw with at horseshoes). Have a bunch of icepacks but sounds like I need to stock up on more so I can rotate them out. ::chuckling:: Have a feeling my freezer is going to be at least a quarter full with icepacks.

Fortunately, bras won't be too much of an issue as I'm small enough that I can go without (a blessing and a curse). Not sure what clothes would work best as right now getting button up stuff off can be uncomfortable. The dogs help with pulling sleeves but I have a feeling they'll not be gentle enough during the initial recovery. Pullovers are a definite no go. Of course I'd do this during a winter that's colder than it's been in many a year with most of my warm wear being pullover styles. I'm probably going to get some more sweat pants to wear for the first month. Any particular types of shirts and sweaters worked well for y'all?

I have short hair that I don't really need to do much with other than blow it upside down. I'm getting the sinking feeling tho that bending over might be a bit more painful than I'm hoping it will be. Obviously the first couple of days I'm going to look pretty scuzzy but will I be able to use my other arm well enough to clean myself up in a couple of days or is this going to be affecting most upper body movement for a while?

I noticed a number of people had RSD issues flair up after surgery. I sent out an email to the doc last night asking about that as one of my docs thought that I might have it. What kind of blocks are supposed to help prevent it from spreading?

Freischlag didn't go into much detail about lung issues other than to say she might have to reinflate. That's one thing I'm not real keen about with her. I like full details to prepare well. I'm guessing she's of the school the less the patient knows the less stressed they are. If you don't know what to ask her, it doesn't get addressed. I have full faith in her operating skills but the recovery part I'm not feeling well prepared for at all. I'm prone to lung infections when I get colds due to someone else contaminating a pathology lab I was in during my microbiology days. Fortunately colds aren't something I easily catch but I'm concerned that lung collapsing might be a whole different ball of wax for preventing my resident germ from redecorating. Are lung issues a real problem with this surgery? Do I need to stay on top of that with the docs to make sure I'm not put at risk for pneumonia?

As to PT, Freischlag apparently is a firm believer in pushing it ASAP. I'm supposed to be using the arm as much as I can during the 2 weeks and the only time I should be wearing a sling is when I go out just to warn people not to bump into me. Having seen a neighbor of mine freeze up her shoulder from not doing PT enough after her shoulder surgery, I'm certain that's probably why the doc has such a rigourous PT schedule as part of her therapy. I don't know what all it will entail but it's supposed to be PT 3 times a week for 12 weeks (I hope my insurance covers it all).

My fusion actually didn't limit me all that much strangely enough. The worst was that it didn't take care of the numbness in my hands constantly keeping me awake so sleep dep on top of the fusion was giving me killer migraines that changed to include uncontrollable vomiting. In hindsight, I'm sure that the fusion flared up the TOS to cause that as my migraines went entirely away after my botox injection into the middle scalene that Freischlag uses as a diagnostic. If I could have continued with the botoxes, I would have cause that treatment was miraculous on taking all my symptoms away for almost a month and a half. I could even easily touch my toes when I did my stretches. The back spasms were entirely gone even with my degenerative disc disease and I didn't have to take any pain killers. Fingers (toes, eyes, etc) crossed, once I heal from the surgery, I'll have that bliss again. The fact that that botox was so convincing is the main reason I agreed to the surgery. I had an idea that it wasn't going to be a fun one and after reading all the posts and responses, I'm even more convinced it's going to be a rough and long road back to "normal" (if I ever was that to begin with).

My biggest concern is loss of ROM. I've worked extremely hard to keep as much as I could after my fusion and the worst limitation is on the right side where they're going to be doing the surgery. I'm guessing that the surgery will initially cause issues there but after it settles down it'll hopefully be better since the scalenes won't be a factor anymore. I'm also pretty concerned about difficulties with neck stabilization. I've talked to a couple of PTs around here that said they treated people who had the release and resection and those people had serious stabilization issues. Last thing I need is to have that with my plated neck. Freischlag says I won't be a bobble head but I'm not going to bet that Murphy's Law won't kick in somehow. Murphy just loves to irritate me way too much. Has anyone else had problems bobble neck or is that just a myth to scare us?

Well, time for me to get ready for the 3 hour drive from Salisbury to Philly to pick up the pupper (waving hello to Diane on the way). Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences and tips. It's very, very much appreciated!!

Mary