It took me a long time to make peace with my limitations. I used to try to power through and that only made things worse.

Yes, I have NTOS, but also some mild vascular involvement. I had a relatively experienced surgeon in SF. I came out of surgery relatively okay except I had some palsy of the phrenic nerve (I think) which made my diaphram not work properly. It resolved over time.

I had a rib resection and scalenectomy. It was done above my collar bone. I had a very difficult 2 month recovery from surgery. Then I had about 3 weeks with less pain. Then things just kept getting worse. At 8 months post op I had a MRI of my brachial plexus by Scott Werden in SF. He specializes in TOS studies. He found a moderate amount of scar tissue surrounding my brachial plexus. He could tell by the density that it was still forming. My doctor at the time said scar tissue on your brachial plexus equals chronic pain.

I don't really thing of re-doing surgery since I had such a bad experience the first time. Even cleaning up scar tissue is sort of an endless loop of forming new scar tissue. I don't see a reason to go down that road.

I'm not a depressive or suicidal person (thank goodness). I had a very supportive partner, step-children and a 13 year old son. I would be in a very different place emotionally if it were not for my family -- especially my son. I do a lot of things because I want my son to have a normal growing up. If I were alone, I'd give in to the pain more often.

This is a long haul. You'll get better at dealing with the physical and emotional pain of this experience. Don't expect yourself to be an expert in only a few months.