@birdman518 Mitch, I will be thinking of you tomorrow. It's OK to be nervous. You are going to have pain from your incision. The pain that has been caused by nerve compression or spinal cord compression might be gone when you wake up. That was my experience. You will have a long recovery and will be tired a lot. Just sleep and eat healthy food to help your body heal. With 3 segments being fused, you will notice your range of motion will be different, but you will get used to it. I was allowed to start physical therapy at about 3 moths post op because that is when the fusion process had begun. That will be something for you to look forward to. The first 2 weeks, I was in the most pain and my throat hurt because it was retracted out of the way during the procedure to get to the spine behind it. It takes about 6 weeks for the incision to heal, and by 6 weeks, most of my surgical pain had subsided, but I was still aware of having had surgery. By 3 months, I was starting to forget I had surgery, but I was weaning out of the neck brace and because my neck was weak, it was exhausting. You may not have that issue if you have some hardware or a plate. I had no hardware by my own choice. I will be looking forward to your updates. Every patient is different, so don't worry about others who have more pain. When you are healed enough, doing myofascial release with a physical therapist can help the tightness that comes with surgical scar tissue. Do what you can to relax tonight, maybe listen to some comforting music. You've got this, and I'm sure you are well prepared for your healing journey.