Hello My Favorite TOS Toys On The Land Of Misfits!

I am 4 weeks post op with Dr. Donahue!

He is a hero - compassionate, humble, skilled, highly-knowledgable.

Everyone at MGH is amazing and caring. They made me feel so good before surgery and as good as can be expected after.

Quick Background: TOS makes my pinkies go numb. It makes my inner elbow on the thumb side hurt. It makes my forearms hurt. I have learned to keep it under control by not doing anything with my arms. My pain has been very low but I cannot live life. I did do physical therapy for a year where she was able to move my rib down somewhat. It was not enough.

Surgery seemed very easy. I think this is because I was in such little pain going in. I had little pain coming out. I did take the pain meds cause I was scared to have pain. I started lowering them around week 2 and I started feeling my chest again (which had been numb since surgery) and it was really not a good feeling, so I am still on some pills.

He said my scalene was interfering with my veins/arteries/nerves. He found lots of scar tissue. He said my rib was a little mis-shaped. All that nasty stuff is gone now!

The bad things have been:
1. My bladder stopped working after surgery. It is awake now and fine but it was a challenge. He said this happens to about 20 percent of guys.

2. The pain medicine is hard to come off of. It has made me nauseous (7up and crackers helped) as well as give me really bad dreams. It does make you sleep A LOT which has to be good.

My ulna nerve has been acting funny and I hope that it is just waking up and is really angry. My pinkie still goes numb, I have new irritation in my bicep, and my elbow makes a sharp pain. Luckily, these things do not happen often. But I am not doing anything but lay around either. I hope things will heal now with time. I will wait a year to judge what surgery has done for me. I also get really intense clenching of my muscles in my sleep (I believe my body is figuring out what is what again).

So, I just want to say that parts of surgery can be easy (I don't understand now why I was so scared) or rough (often times I freak myself out by thinking I will be disabled forever). But you have to take it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. At the hospital, it was minute by minute.

I believe TOS is different for everyone. Surgery will be as well. I wasn't going to know unless I tried and the potential for an actual life was too high for me to not do it. It changes day by day. (I can be very negative on a bad day); I will withhold any blanket judgement for a year.

I would not take it back. I am very open to doing the other side once I know more about the side I did do. I really need to get back in to life (even though limited) before I take so much time off for surgery again. I am so bored!

I know there is a ton of stuff I am leaving out. This is where I am right now.

I hope you have more good days than bad very soon. I know how long the recovery from this surgery can be and how difficult it is emotionally to not be sure whether you're going to be one of the lucky ones. I'm pulling for you.

Take care,
Kelly

Good to hear all is going well with your recovery. Keep up the good work.

hi heybro..im happy to hear that u r recovering after op..hope everything goes well..i just wanted to ask a question..what r the test they did to comfirm tos..did they do mri or cta did it show anything???

he did ct scan that showed my artery narrow in the outlet

Did only the ct show compression?

Did any of the tests that pts do (you know like turning your head and taking a pulse) show anything

there was a lot of that yes
i could not lift my hands up without hands going white

Hello Heybro! I am glad your surgery went well and I wish you a good recovery. It takes quite some patience. I am almost 3 months post op and am feeling good most of the time. Still tired and canno work full time because of TOS on my other side. Take good care!

it is great to hear from you. I am glad that you used dr donahue. He is a great guy and wonderful surgeon.

glad everything is going good. take it easy