On January 8th I went back to the ortho, who scheduled my surgery for March 3rd. He says he can't tell me for sure how big the tear is based only on the MRI images, but said he'd give my shoulder a good look around with the athroscope along with reparing the tear.

 The mri also reported that my capsula was extremely wide, which could have contributed to making the tear, so the doc is going to  perform a capsular shrinkage as well.

Now all I have to do is wait, and put up with weeks of mixed feeling of excitment and fear