Hi parbie,

Dr. de Perrot (thoracic surgeon) at TGH. he's AMAZING!! I definitely recommend him .

Unfortunately, they couldn't do the full resection due to the extensive damage they found when they opened me up. They ended up removing "ALOT" (docs words) of scar tissue which was attached to the bone, and nerves (which was causing the numbness in the entire right arm), and that was causing severe compression on the subclavian vein (making my hand go purple/ blue). So pretty much he said they scrapped the crap out of inner part of the 1st rib, and removed as much scar tissue as possible without causing too much damage.

Surgery was 1.5 weeks ago. still in ALOT of pain (still needing pain meds every 3 hours) - severe lack of sleep (3:29 am right now - have only slept about 3 hours in the past 48). i have limitations with the movement of my right arm (which is to be expected) - THANK GOD! for the advice from kellysf & BDBomg about using a sling - this has been a life saver!!

My battle scar is located at the base of my neck on the right side (lovely 3.5 inches) plus a nice ugly hole below that where they had to put a drain in.

Unfortunately, i'm still having all the same symptoms I had previous to the surgery (discolouration, numbness) - i'm hoping this is only due to the swelling. only time will tell.

follow-up with the surgeon is in another 2.5 weeks. They said they only wanted to see me in the office once the pathology reports are in (which is kind of strange, if it's only scar tissue what's the concern?).

I will write another update within the next few weeks on the recovery progress.


Katie