One week today and I'm doing pretty well. My right side much better than my left. Everything around the incision site feels pretty good unless you press on it. If it were only that, I'd be on no pain killers at all. I have some stronger pain in my back and behind my left shoulder blade. I think my back is where they cut the ribs off on the back side and under the shoulder blade is transferred pain. I also have some tightness and stronger pain right next to my left armpit in the front where the pec minor is. Not sure what that's about. I do get some pain down my left arm especially when I tighten things up or extend it out from my body in any way. I think this will pass with time, it doesn't feel like the radiating pain before surgery. I get intermittent numbness in both my forearms that I assume is from post-surgical swelling? Not sure, but again, since it's not all the time I think it's part of the healing process.
My hands no longer feel like I need to "wring them out" and my arms/hands feel a LOT warmer these days. To the point that sometimes it's uncomfortably weird. I'll get over it My left arm always needs to be supported, my right arm does not. I do have a lot of tightness in all of my neck muscles that usually baclofen deals with, but sometimes doesn't. It's a weird sensation since they didn't take the scalenes, they just let them kinda...hang in the wind. I also have a visible "collapsed in" portion of my chest under the clavicle. It really makes me sick to look at. I don't know that anyone else would notice it if they weren't looking at it but I'm hoping it's more of an optical illusion due to swelling rather than really being sunken in because of the lack of rib there. Or at least that I'll get over it!
Overall, I'd say I'm healing fast and that I think this will be a good thing once all is said and done. It makes me a little nervous that my left side is so much worse than my right but I'm going to give it time before I freak too much. My left side was much more symptomatic and there was muscle wasting so it was not in as good shape. It was also not my dominant side so I'm going to assume that it's just going to take a little more work to get it where it needs to me. I hear that the better shape you're in, the easier and faster you heal. So it would make sense that my right side is doing better than my left.

I'd love to hear how you're doing a month out now so I can have an idea of what to look forward to. I just have a nagging feeling that I'm going to need a pec minor tenectomy on my left side and that maybe these scalenes are going to have to be removed in the end. Crossing my fingers that I'm just being a bit of a hypochondriac after having so many issues for so long!!

Funny you say your left is worse than your right side - mine was (and still is) too. The scar on my left is also much larger and I did have a complication on the left with the chest tube, it was hitting a nerve so I couldn't stand up after my left surgery, very uncomfortable, pain through the roof until they took the chest tube out then it was much better. The pain on my left side was also much worse, and like you said, in the back between the shoulder blades. When I came home from the hospital and was off the really good drugs I had a hard time sleeping, it was very uncomfortable on my back and of course I couldn't sleep on either side for the first few weeks because of incisions on both sides.

But after a few days at home the pain got better. Every day it was amazing how much better I felt. Very tired though, lots of resting. But I was up and we were out doing things right away, hubby had to wash my hair over the tub for me the first few days. We have horses and I found that a long polo bandage meant to wrap around a horse's leg felt great wrapped around my chest up high under my boobs, it felt like it gave me support and held everything in. Breathing was tough the first bit - a sneeze is hell! But again, it gets better every day and returns to normal.

By the way, I am 44 yrs old, no kids, but we do have horses and I live a fairly active lifestyle, was riding and running regularly prior to surgery so am fairly fit - I am not a super athlete type but try to stay healthy. I think that helps as I saw people coming out of the same surgery I had in really rough shape, but maybe it is just different reactions to the anaesthesia, etc.

One bad thing was we sold our house and had to move when I was a week out of the hospital - we hired people to move stuff and to clean the house but of course I still ended up doing stuff, more than I should have and was pretty sore after that for a few days. Timing sucked but you gotta do what you gotta do!

Ok, so it is 4 1/2 weeks post surgery - saw surgeon last week - he ok'd me to start Physio now - I have an appt tomorrow. He also said I can start light exercise again (no weight lifting though, ha ha) and yoga classes. I have been taking my horse for walks through the snow for the past few weeks. They say to not drive for a few weeks - I was able to drive after one week. I went to a yoga class a few days ago, it was tough and I had to modify poses and do a lot of child's poses (resting pose) but I made it and it felt great, and I wasn't sore the next day.

I have been back doing normal daily stuff like cooking and shopping, cleaning, but I only do a little and then rest. The first month I noticed I was really tired a lot and needed a lot of rest, feeling more normal now. Everything is modified from normal of course, but then it was always modified before surgery anyhow, so not a lot of change there.

Oh yeah, and my hands are warmer too.

I have two more months to recover before I have to return to work so I hope that things settle more in that time. My GP is quite optimistic. The surgeon is too, he thinks I'm currently at 50% better and before surgery and things will continue to improve over the next 2 months.

My problem is that I feel pretty good so its hard to not do too much. But I am still amazed that I feel as good as I do for having just had such a brutal surgery. It's pretty funny to see people's reactions when you tell them you just had two ribs removed - they look at you like you are from Mars!

For sure, I am no worse off than before surgery, my shoulders don't ache as much, upper arms not as bad, forearms hardly at all now, but elbows do still hurt, some neck stiffness but not as bad. The pain in the back between shoulder blades from surgery is lessening, only feel it once in a while now and it is mostly on the left side, hardly ever felt it on the right. At first I did feel a lot of strange almost firing or pulsing sensations in my arms but that went away.

I guess it's all just a waiting game. But take heart, it does continue to get better!

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like things are going well. I think I'll be good as new in no time. Hopefully this time it sticks! I felt great after my shoulder surgeries only to be bombarded by TOS only a couple years later. I mean, jeeze, what else could go wrong in there?!

1 week 2 days post op. Using breast milk to reduce scarring/inflammation/redness. Better photo of transsternal approach.

that is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i can understand wanting to get the incision there tho, further from neck the better imho

Since it was bilateral and AVTOS he wanted to be able to have good access to the vessels and he had to cut across the sternum. Would have been nice of him to make it straight though... would have made it look like he took his time and was careful! Now I'm stuck with a lopsided scar lol. At least it's healing well!

Three weeks post op and I'm feeling about the same as I did 1 1/2 weeks post op. I know I really need to get into PT but apparently the surgeon who saw me for my post op appointment thinks that should be left up to my actual surgeon to order. I'm frustrated. I know I need PT and it takes a couple weeks after a prescription is sent for it for everything to be scheduled. I'm really scared about frozen shoulder or other nasty things happening while I'm waiting for someone to decide to care enough to get me some help.

Physically, I still have some pain behind my left shoulder blade and tightness in my left pec minor, my entire chest, and my entire neck- front and back. I'm taking baclofen only these days and it's just not doing the job. I've got one day left of it and my doctor's office doesn't want me on any more pain relief of any kind, but, won't help me feel better by giving me a PT rx either!

I'm not doing so much sleeping and my incision is healing up as nicely as can be expected so at least that's good. My arms are feeling better but I still have numbness and tingling when I raise my arms up. I'm hoping this is just one of those things that takes time to fix but between the disparaging blood pressures in my arms, the tingling/numbness when raising up my arms, and the crazy muscle spasms, I'm left wondering if perhaps this surgery wasn't as successful as it could have been if they had released the left pec minor and removed the scalenes instead of letting them just kinda hang out.

I'm sorry you're having such complications with your surgeon/the PT being ordered. Your hospital experience also sounds horrible. My parents are rather passive and wouldn't have been much help advocating if it were me in that situation!

Thank you for posting all of this, though! It's been very helpful to read through your surgery process!

Having some shortness of breath that's getting worse over the past few days, new pain behind my sternum and some wheezing. I can't breath at all if I lay down flat. It's looking like my doctor's office is sending me to the ER to be worked up for pulmonary embolism... just waiting for a call back now.

Ended up getting in with the doctor yesterday. Found some weird findings... my pulse ox was down at 92 though I was feeling better than I was the day before and my pulse ox is usually 100 as I live at sea level. When it was bad, it was around 87.
After doing an x-ray to rule out pneumonia, listening to my lungs to rule out a collapsed lung, and a CT scan to rule out pulmonary embolism I was diagnosed with anxiety and given a script for Ativan. I challenged the doctor on this because A. I do have an anxiety disorder so it's not like I don't know the feeling and I wasn't anxious- just couldn't breath! Also, being anxious can cause you to hyperventilate or feel like you can't breath... but it doesn't actually cause your pulse ox to go down. He then said that what's probably going on is that everything is tight and swollen so the phrenic nerve is probably being irritated causing difficulty breathing but he still wants me to talk the Ativan since it works as a muscle relaxant too. Whatever. What's a few more damn pills?