PharmaCan, thanks so much for your posts and the wonderful advice!

I think they're going to end up fusing C5 - 7 on me, after they do the anterior discectomy and also a cervical foramenotomy, which must be the part in which they widen out the path for the spinal colum and the projecting nerves through that section. They're using bone bank/donor bone on me, too. Just one less thing to have to heal from instead of also having a hip incision, too, for bone harvesting. They're using a reinforcing titanium plate to help brace the fusion.

I have more questions for you, if that's OK. Did you have to wear your cervical collar to sleep in? Was it hard to adjust to? Also, tell me about what they do to keep your esophagus open during the surgery. I've wondered about that. I know they'll have a tube in my trachea to breathe for me, but I've been wondering how they open you up from the front of your neck, get in there and do all that delicate work with retractors and still keep your esophagus open on one side and your carotid on the other. I wish I could see the whole procedure on video, to be honest. I've heard that with swelling and pain in the first two or three post-op days, swallowing can be a challenge. My surgery's not going to take 9 hours. The surgeon said it'd be about 3.

That's very reassuring to me that your symptoms were relieved so quickly and that you stopped pain meds so quickly. I don't get much help from traditional narcotic pain meds, but I do like NSAIDs such IV toradol or oral ibuprofen. Did you regain any of your lost neurological ground afterwards? I'm hoping the numbness and tingling will stop in my shoulders and that the muscle weakness will be reversible. I'd also like the fatigue to go away. The neurosurgeon said what comes back will be icing on the cake and cautioned that the surgery's intent is to stop the progression of spinal damage.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate talking to someone else who's had similar work done in a similar area. And it is so reassuring to read that muscle cramps were part of your symptoms, too. It was that symptom, along with the muscle weakness and slight motor difficulties, that I think led that one surgeon to say he thought I was at the beginnings of ALS. Fortunately two ohter surgeons concurred on the stenosis/spondylosis problem and said this can be fixed.