[Don Plumley]

Close to home here too - three years ago my wife suddenly ruptured her L5S1 disc, and extruded the contents into her spinal canal. (Local doc in a box said she strained her back and gave her muscle relaxants - grrr) I know a bunch of docs and we interviewed five surgeons in the area. Choose a super-specialist out of UCLA/St. Johns (PM me if you want any details). He did a microdiskectomy just taking out the extruded bits. Only a 2" incision, rapid post-op recovery, my wife was back skiing in 12 months - 100% recovery. We are blessed.

Sounds like your case is more advanced and I've generally heard more bad things than good about fusing vertebra - so this could be a much better alternative. Anyway, as far down the path as you are, one more pre-surgical eval isn't going to hurt and I'd be happy to refer you to my wife's doc.

Best of luck!

Don