Well, all of this is sounds soooo familar, and as if I wrote most of them. First, I was glad to see I was not alone in this battle, and that (sorry) there were others. It's frustrating to most of us I'm sure, because it sounds like we are all strong, muscle building, workout type folk, who thrive on being in shape, and taking care of ourselves.
I'm a firefighter Capatain of rank, and 31 years on the line providing for others and fix it solutions. I am also a tactical paramedic/ sniper on a SWAT team, high angle rescue and confined space tech. So you can imagine the abuse I've dealt myself over the years "fixing" others problems and issues, yet frustrated that so far, they can't fix mine.
Mine started out the same, just woke up thinking I'd slept on this wrong, the usual pain under the scapula, unable to look right etc. 24 hours later, the spasms were so instense down my right arm clear to my hand, that they'd put me down! The contractions were instense and would last 2-3 minutes, and breathing through them was the only relief. Docs tried 3-4 different muscle relaxers, pain meds, for almost 3 weeks, before someone decided I best be on a steroid dose pack. This immediately in 12 hours calmed the spasms.
MRI showed narrowing around C5-6 area, and partial collapsed disc at C4.
Following this, the tricep, bicep, and pec muscles begin terrible atrophy, almost like cancer ate them. They diminished in size, strength, to the point I went from benching 255 regularly, and doing 40-50 pushups daily, to not being able to do even one unless I used mostly my left side. Curling strength is still there, along with pretty good military pressing ability, but no outward benching strength.
EMG showed significant diminished damage and validated the C4,5 damage. Overall, it's been almost 2 months now, and today, they informed me that if I don't have the surgery to fix the pressure on the nerve bundle, that I risk loosing the tricep and pec area muscles, since they aren't responding. How depressing, as I was hoping for an easier fix!
Can anyone enlighten me as to what to expect from a surgery of this magnitude, recovery time, ability to return to normal activity etc?

Thanks