Originally Posted by LosingHope

I recommend calling them and telling them your doctor is referring you and sending records, but you wanted to go ahead and start the appointment-making process. Given that you have already had so many tests, done PT, etc and you have a TOS diagnosis, plus you are a long-distance patient, they will likely do for you the same thing they did for me - schedule an appointment with a surgery scheduled for the day after (unless you are opposed to having surgery, of course, but I didn't get that impression from you). How quickly that happens will depend on how many surgeries are already scheduled. When i contacted them, the first available surgery was 6 weeks away, but I emphasized that if there were any cancellations, etc. to please let me know, and a week later they called with an appointment 2 weeks earlier than the one they'd originally scheduled. If you have to fly in, doing that might not work for you, though. You can expect to be required to stay nearby for 4 days post-op, but you probably won't actually be hospitalized that long.

Baylor has several hospitals in Texas; I saw Dr. Pearl in Dallas - actually, I didn't realize he was doing surgeries at the Waco location, too, but, if that's the case, if one hospital is too heavily booked, you might try the other.

I can only imagine how much more devastated I would have felt after multiple surgeries that didn't help; my heart goes out to you. But take heart, I'm not a young athlete either - I'm in my mid-thirties and could stand to lose about 20 lbs; it's damn near impossible to stay in shape when TOS has you laid up for years on end - but, as I said before, I'm doing better than I had dared hope. I'm so glad you got a referral; fingers crossed there will be an appointment available for you PDQ!