I did have my follow up. Dr. P said everything looks great from surgery, checked that my pulse is present on that side in all stress positions, examined the incision site and checked my lungs, all systems go. The first question he asked is if I'm feeling better than i did prior to surgery, and the answer is still a resounding Yes.

He wants me to continue the at-home PT and said I've got a ways to go with strength-building - partly from the normal degeneration from five weeks doing absolutely nothing post-op and an additional 8 weeks of light duty at work and relative inactivity otherwise, and partly b/c I've probably never used my upper body correctly, always trying to compensate for discomfort/pain. But here's the important part - I am allowed to start "easing into" resuming "normal" life.

For me, the best part is that I got the okay to get back on my horse - he said at this point there's no reason falling off would be any more dangerous than prior to surgery, but to take it easy and expect to be sore, especially once I get back to more percussive movements. He said these kinds of jarring motions (also mentioned jogging and dancing) would be the hardest to resume. Of course I hightailed it to the barn (just to walk around a little, honestly!) only to find that my horse has come up lame - guess he wanted to extend his vacation a little longer... but I suppose that will give me a chance to do a few less-strenuous activities first and see what that brings, and not set myself up for failure by leaping first into the activity that caused the most TOS aggravation.

Naturally, I'm anxious to see how things are actually going to go - am I going to have uncontrollable pain and flare-up? - and especially to see where I'm going to stand with the left (non-surgery) side - has it been behaving better because it's gotten to rest, too, or because freeing up all the stuff on the right has decreased the strain on that side? I'll admit I'm really scared that once I try adding activity, I'm going to end up in just as much pain as I was in before surgery, on one or both sides. But I suppose there's only one way to find out...