I have been thinking about you. You had your surgery a few days before mine. Mine will be three weeks this coming Thursday and I have had the same exact complaints as yours except for numbness and tingling. Thankfully, as soon as I woke up, that horrid, debilitating pain under my shoulder blade and down my arm was gone! I called the doc about the pain between my shoulder blades. I had already posted on here about it and Ginnie replied about the muscle relaxants. I was already taking two a day due to older back problems, but the doc increased it to three a day which has helped. I only take one or two pain pills a day and that's mainly when I want to lay down and rest some. I too have trouble with swallowing and choking. I feel as if I have a golf ball lodged in my throat. It is getting a little better, I just try to eat things that are easy to swallow for now. At least I can now swallow my meds whole instead of cutting them up. I am just impatient, want to do do much too soon. However, I could never even imagine going back to work doing what you do just four weeks post op. You really should talk to your doc about the numbness and tingling. I have regained almost all of the feeling in my fingers on my left hand. Please let us know how it goes!