@jojo58 Severe cervical stenosis is something that can cause a lot of disability in the rest of your body with every signal from your brain passing through there. It can cause permanent damage to the spinal cord if not treated or paralysis. I have a fusion at C5/C6 which I had when I was about your age. Recovery is different for everyone, but many patients who go back to work too early say that they never healed right and live with pain. I chose to have a fusion with no hardware, and only had a donor bone disc. I wore a neck brace for 3 months and had to do that until the fusion process started. I was off for at least 5 months without trying to do anything. I was going to rehab because after 3 months in a neck brace, the neck muscles are weak and need to be taught how to do their job again. What I see as a problem for a cashier is that you will be looking down a lot at items a customer is purchasing. That likely will cause headaches and neck pain because the levels of C2-C4 are involved in neck bending and head turning. C1 & C2 do most of the work in head turning with help from C3 and C4. That can cause stress to the other levels above and below the fusion which can lead to more spine surgery down the road. If you can find a way to keep your neck straight and head level after surgery, your spine would be happier about that.

A lot of doctors don't want to work on levels this high in C spine. The nerves that go to the lungs exit the spine around C3 and they don't want to risk damage to your breathing. You can ask about that. Do you also have stenosis at the nerve roots too or just in the central canal?
Are you going to get any second opinions? That is always a good idea with major surgery.