I was just looking at the calendar and I realized it was 20 years ago, this month, that I had my scalenectomy. It was August 1991. I had no idea how much misery and pain that was going to cause me. I had never even heard of TOS at the time.

We owned a dairy, and that's how I got TOS, milking cows everyday. Squatting down and reaching underneath the cows is very uncomfortable. It was a classic case of repetitive strain injury. I had no idea why I was in pain all the time and I worked that way for 12 years before I was ever diagnosed.

Finally, I blew out some discs in my lower back and a physical therapist I was seeing noticed my hand was purple. He's the one that finally diagnosed me with TOS. I had no idea what that was since I had never heard of it.

I had the surgery and instead of getting better I felt terrible. Much more pain. It was the end of my working days.

It's been a little over 16 months since I started stretching, doing the Sharon Butler self-care program and the Intu-flow program, along with lot of stuff that I make up myself. I have to say, that even though I'm not pain free, I am feeling the best that I've felt, since that surgery 20 years ago.

I had actually given up on ever getting any better. I thought the damage was done. But now, I'm actually feeling cautiously optimistic, that maybe if I keep this up, I may have a chance of being a somewhat functional person again someday.