Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate your explanation and it does help to put me more at ease. I am having the same problem with L4-5 but am going to try injections for it first. My neck is the main thing right now as a high risk of parallelization. I think you explained it better than the actual doctor. Although, I am not sure what all they said after I heard surgery, cages, plates, screws, rods, fusing, and one wrong move right now and I would be like Christopher Reeves. My mind was going a million miles a minute after that. They wanted to do the surgery right away but I postponed it until as long as they would allow to be in September. I am trying my best to think positively about it but I have a lot of pain due to many other health issues so that was and is a huge concern. Again I truly appreciate you taking the time to type out how yours went. If I think of anything else I will come back to ask if that is ok? I usually think of things as I am trying to sleep at night. lol.