Well, now we know why I had my blood clot . . .

. . . it's something beautiful people have troubles with! My brother was kind enough to send me this article link , which discusses Miss Indiana-USA. She noticed her arm was purple and swollen last week, and she was admitted to the hospital. The doctors found a blood clot, and they also did surgery to remove her first rib. Here is some more information on Paget-Schroetter syndrome, which is exactly what I had, although my doctor never called it that. He always just used the more generic "thoracic outlet syndrome", but Paget-Schroetter syndrome is evidently a specific manifestation of thoracic outlet syndrome. Interesting. My clot was in the subclavian vein, and my symptoms were just as are described in the second link. And I too felt "like an elephant kicked me in the chest" after my surgery. Wow, we have so much in common! The picture in the first article looks just like me too. . . LOL!