I saw my surgeon..... surgery date set!

Yesterday I travelled all the way to Wolverhampton NHS Trust New Cross Hospital to meet Mr Andy Garnham who is a vascular surgeon. He was very friendly, briefly ran through Rob's findings from Bristol and conducted a short physical examination checking my pulse or lack of subclavian pulse with my arms in different positions and using a stethescope. He said that he would be doing a scalenectomy and removing my first rib. Despite the findings from the radiology assessment that injecting pec minor gave me further relief, he thinks that because of my hypermobility and EDS that to remove pec minor would create a lack of stablility for my shoulder as it is a muscle working very hard where other muscles aren't doing enough work. The same old story in my case - some muscles do far too much leading to pain, whereas others are inactive. However, if we don't get a good enough result from the surgery by just removing the scalenes, he would consider removing pec minor at a later date. We went through risks - death from General Anaesthetic - GA, blood clots, the fact I might need a chest drain. I then signed my consent form. I explained that my pain management consultant was coming up with a plan for pain relief post-operatively and that I might need a longer stay in hospital given my EDS. I also gave mention I might need ITU or HDU after surgery. Mr Garnham said that he would also give me some local anaesthetic in the ribs once he'd completed surgery, and botox into pec minor which might last a few months. He also said I might want a drug such as pre-gabalin to help with nerve pain post-op. I also negotiated to come in the day before surgery due to travelling, but said that I wanted to be in hospital and settle in, rather than a local hospital as I would be coming alone with no support. He agreed to this. We managed to do my MRSA screen and take some pre-op assessment bloods, and Mr Garnham also wanted an x-ray of the top part of my rib cage to have a closer look at the first two ribs. Anyway, the date was also set and is going to be Thursday 12th September for surgery, and I will come into hospital on Wednesday 11th September. Everyone that I met at the hospital was extremely kind and friendly and I left feeling very happy and relieved that this is now going to happen after all the previous disbelief that I have experienced, it was nice not to have to fight my consultant, or convince them there was a problem, because he found it clearly and said this was work that was right up his street having done this type of surgery for 19 years. I left Wolverhampton feeing extremely happy and relieved, and although I have another two months to wait, knowing that there will be a surgery at the end of it will help me through it.  However I am under no illusions, as it is very painful surgery and will take many weeks/months to entirely recover.