Just got a call from the doctor's office... they're having me go in for surgery a day earlier. One less day to prepare and I feel like I've been thrown for a loop! 5 more days. There will never be another Friday that I spend with my 1st ribs. I'm feeling rather sentimental!

Well, it's go-time. Tomorrow I'll be headed in for surgery. I'm definitely nervous and this 0.5mg of Ativan they gave me has helped exactly not at all.
Wish me luck and I'll be in touch soon to let ya'll know how it went!

Best of luck!

Hope it went well....

It did. I'm in pretty good shape. I'll write more as I regain function as the lidocaine wears off,

Wishing u a speedy recovery.

Wow!!!! Good luck

Do they cut the scalenes at all ?

They left the scalenes in (scaleneotomy) in the end but when I touch them (which doesn't hurt at all btw) they are soft. There is a ridge in them that you can't see but can definitely feel so I think they're just kinda hanging out.

I'm gonna work on a post with my experience as of day 1!

So, surgery started around 2pm yesterday. I had an arterial line put in which was absolutely no big deal after a big honkin' dose of anti-anxiety meds which the anesthesiologist gave me just to be nice. I have a feeling that it was supposed to hurt a great deal but between that and a numbing agent, it was not at all a big deal.
Got out of surgery and things were a bit hazy until my boyfriend joined me. I was told that everything went well and they took an x-ray of my chest. My boyfriend told me that both of my lungs had collapsed during surgery. I was surprised to notice that my throat wasn't really very sore at all.
I was moved up to my room for Vascular/Thoracic patients and, to my surprise was rooming with a girl a few years older than me who had the exact same surgery with the same doctor just a couple hours previous to me. My pain coming out of surgery was probably an 8 out of 10 but, then again, so was my normal daily pain so it wasn't anything too unmanageable. I was given a few shots of dilaudid and it was under control. The doctor did forget to order a pain pump for me so I went without until about 8:30pm which sucked but once I got that I was pretty comfortable. I also had a "pain ball" filled with lidocaine. It was great at first, but started to spread down my arms to the point that my arms were completely numb and almost completely useless. It's still in me, but it's clamped down so I'm not getting the meds anymore.
I have a vacuum thingy hooked up to 2 chest tubes draining fluid from my chest. I don't find this bothersome.
Surprisingly, I've found the IV Tylenol they're giving me to be fantastically effective at relieving me of the achy feelings I have in my neck and left arm. If I had to guess, this aching is blood flow being restored to my arm as I've never felt anything like it before and seems to coincide with the pulling feeling I get when moving my neck.
A lot of pain seems to have been relieved and a lot of old sensation restored. I feel more strong and my shoulders have fallen back into place. I know it's early, but I feel like when I heal up I'm going to be a very happy camper.

Edited to fix typos because apparently the hydromorphone has affected me more than I thought!!

Oh, I did want to mention as well that my range of motion is great. I can easily lift my arms over my head and carefully up
behind my back. Out to the side is harder and I can make about a 120 degree angle that way. I would be willing to post a picture of my incision if anyone is interested as it is a transsternal approach. I don't want to gross anyone out though.
I did find out why they cracked the sternum. Apparently, they lift it up a bit so they can get the last little bit of rib out from the back and since they were doing both sides at once it needed to be cut. I have pain while deep breathing but only a little. No worse than when I cracked a rib coughing during pneumonia. I can do the blowing exercise thingy with ease (inhaling over 3000 cc's of air) and I cough when I'm supposed to without using a pillow because it's just not that necessary. I do have a high pain tolerance, but I can honestly say that I'm quite comfortable.