@msmith49 - Good morning and please be prepared for a long answer. I have a lot of perspective that might help you work through your not-uncommon pre-surgical angst.

I had what's called an ACDF at C4-7. That was 18 months ago. Today - all my cervical-related symptoms are gone, I feel 99.5% fully recovered, my frontal scar is nearly invisible, and I'm so happy I had that procedure done. Now the details.

The "A" means they come in through the front. Seems counter-intuitive but it works well. The "C" means cervical area. The "D" means discectomy, and the
"F" means fusion. Let's talk about the D and the F.

If your cervical spine is damaged, collapsing, significantly mis-aligned, or changing due to advanced arthritis - one result is your disks between some vertebrae literally break-down and need to be replaced. No amount of PT or drugs will repair that damage once it's occurred. Surgery is the only option.

The neurosurgeon (not an orthopedic surgeon) literally removes the old damaged disks and inserts new disks that the doctors call a cage. Each cage is custom-sized to work for you and mine are perforated to better allow new bone growth to bind the disks to my existing spinal column.

Now the "F". When putting in new cages over several levels of the cervical spine - the spine in that area is weakened until new bone growth allows the patient to return to normal life. There is a period post-surgery where the cervical spine needs extra protection. For me - we decided to install "hardware" which is two plates that screw together the four levels of vertebrae. These two plates assure me of adequate neck stability during the initial six-week recovery period and well beyond. I wore a plastic neck brace (no big deal and not worth worrying about that! You become accustomed to the brace very quickly, I found) for six weeks. NOTE: Sometimes patients don't want the hardware installed and in that case they need to wear a neck brace for a much longer period while new bone growth occurs.

I have not had knee replacements but I have had lower lumbar surgery and I can compare the two by saying the cervical work was a "4" and the lumbar work was a "10".

Please continue to express your concerns. That process can be helpful in undertanding what to expect. What other perspectives can I share?