[samantha]

Don't have a clue what i am doing or getting myself into. I was recntly diagnosed, operated on and am currently a "victim" of TOS....how on earth I got elected for this dubious distinction, beats me....help...advice, encouragement from fellow survivors.

[LinJane]

Give us a little bit about yourself and your surgery. There are so many people here that can offer advice and encouragement. Can you tell us what type of surgery you had? Lots here to help just let everyone know.

Linda

[astern]

Welcome Samantha, give us details! Many here have great advice on a variety of sub-sub-sub TOS specialties.


Anne

[gibbrn]

Welcome to our world sorry to meet with this reason....but welcome. You are in the right place for support, medical info, ranting is allowed, we all get it!!!

I hope you can be open and allow us to help you. We are all so amazingly different and so amazingly the same. We are SURVIVORS and we are the strongest of the strong. We all have our horrific days and we share....or the day after if we can't type.....we cry together we feel each others pain and pray for each other. WE are happy you are with our family now!! (hope I can speak collectively when I say we)

let us know what you need and we will do our best to answer you!

Again welcome and happy day!
love and hugs,
Victoria

[ozzy14]

Hello Samantha, welcome to our world. More info on you would be good. Look no further than here for information and support. Im ozzy from Australia so if you need to know anything about the land down under, im your girl!

Ozzy (Lisa)

[LinJane]

Samantha as Victoria said Weare all here and will offer information and support. I do not claim to have medical information, mostly support. Alot here do have great medical information to provide. Good luck and welcome! Linda

[Rachael]

Welcome Samantha. ASk lots of questions, each and everyone here have had alot of different experiences that you will learn from.
I hope that I will be able to help you out too, but unfortunatley I am not as experienced and knowledgable as most here....but hey...I can lend a supportive shoulder when needed!!
Rach

[LinJane]

Hey Rachael which shoulder! I can't offer my right but I can my left!

Linda

[samantha]

Well, I found the right thing to hit and found the reply box. I have never been in a chat room....but I am here and I guess this is a chat room of a type???

I am 58 years young. I like to say I am a recovering housewife. In 1996 I terminated my marriage and after 22 years of being a homemaker, I had to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up this time....So I finally got a job with the State of Illinois, enrolled in the Upward Mobility program and got my Bachelor's in Accounting and got my current position as a Revenue Tax Auditor in Nov 2005. Thank God I got certified in Nov 2006 and the State has a good (and hopefully fair) disability program. Sooo, anyway, as if I had not been tested enough already to see how much stuff I could handle and as if I weren't already a "finely honed blade of steel" I received my current challenging adventure.
I can't really pinpoint very many warning signs over the years that I had TOS. But I have been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease in my neck, have had a lot of headaches (allergies/exhusband/tension) and lots of neck muscular problems. In 2004 I had done a major painting job and had a bulging disc that resulted in problems in my right arm, loss of some range of motion, numbness that healed itself in time and with home exercise. Then june 2007, I noticed my left hand and arm looked larger than my right..Dumb me was thinking...I have a nephew that was born that way, maybe I have been that way all along or perhaps the right arm was on the blink and I needed to pump up the weight routine to make it look like the left one. On July 2, I went to my doctor for a sinus infection and mentioned it to him. He sent me for neck xrays thinking it was a compression. The next morning I got up and my left arm was purple and extremely swollen....The doc sent me for doppler exam and plop, I was in a wheel chair being admitted. I had a clost in my left arm from just above my elbow all the way up to my subclavical vein (i guess that is what it is called). The local folks hit it with angioblast and TPA (what fun) and decided to wait and see what the anticoagulants would do. I got out July 8th. Well, Jim works at Barnes Jewish in STL. He took my xrays for show and tell. Bam, the top doc in the world called him after being told about my xrays and said he wanted my scrawny butt in BJC right now. Sooo, on July 13th I had the TOS decompression- first rib and scalene muscle removed, vein exposed and removed and replaces with a bovine pericardium vein, fistula placed in the wrist. I had complications and they went back in the 16th to remove clots from the fistula, shorten the cow vein and remove a clot, remove a hematoma and fluid from the plueral cavity. On July 25th I had more surgery to remove a large hematoma (2 pints) as I had a leak.....Still not sure old cow vein is working correctly... Until I started the swelling therapy (massage and wrapped like a mummy) my arm was still very swollen. that is enough for now as i hear few snores......

[gibbrn]

Holy Cow....pun intended.....have you been through the ringer!!! I can't believe you actually had that much surgery......!!!!!

Well my dear you are in the right place!!!!!

love and hugs,
Victoria