@mincer I am sorry for your loss. I certainly would be willing to talk things over with you anytime if you need an ear. Surgeons can't make guarantees to fix pain because they don't know how much nerve damage there is, and there will be scar tissue from surgery. You have to stretch that out later because neck muscles do get tight and painful when they can't move correctly. Immediately when I woke up from surgery, all of my pre-existing pain generated by the spine problem was gone, so the leg pain, body pain and neck pain was gone. the pain I had was from the incision and the surgical path, and my legs worked just fine. make sure to walk after surgery and work to clear your lungs because pneumonia is a risk after being under anesthesia and if you can't clear the phlegm, it turns into an infection. usually they give you a device to breathe into for that. I did have to go on antibiotics 5 days after surgery for a lung infection. The drugs also slow down your GI tract a lot, so you need to use fiber, etc to try to keep things moving.