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Awesome! The point of this whole thread was to be a resource of information. I'm glad that my particular perspective has been useful to you. Stick with it! You will feel better at 18 months than you do now at 9 months. It only gets better.
This far on I often forget that I have had the surgery. I still have the permanent nerve damage in my right leg but that's become normal. Occasionally my hamstrings will remind me, but other than that it doesn't take up a huge amount of mental space. I am more than capable of keeping up with my 5 year old son, which pretty much all that matters these days.
I miss sharing my completely awesome x-rays with people and watching their reaction. I don't miss the endless questions about setting off airport metal detectors.
Lumber fusion isn't for sissies :-)
A-freaking-men!
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Aroogah
Sincerest thanks for taking the time to build your informative post. Personally now 9 months post-L4-L5-S1 posterior fusion. In the very early days, I looked for information like this without success; today I finally used a useful search string to find this.
My surgeon is a highly skilled doctor who performed his work as well as one might hope. He has been unsympathetic about my cycling vacuum, and advised me from the outset to expect to ride a bike or motorcycle only after 12-18 months post-surgery. Not what anyone wants to hear, particularly without explanation as to why such a long recovery period is required. I subsequently leaned from my physical therapist that it mostly has to do with pain induced by vibration being transmitted from the frame straight to one's a**.
When it was time to commence physical therapy, I was most fortunate to work with two ladies that specialized in spinal surgery rehab. They taught me after some weeks how to get down to the floor and back up - yes - relearning everything. After two months of them stretching me and leading me through workouts on weight machines that specifically avoid stress-loading the lumber spine, I informed the head gal that I was not gaining much from my visits, and that I was going to check myself out of rehab. She asked me what my plan was? I replied, what do you mean? She said well, I cannot let you out of here unless you have a personal plan. I answered that I planned to work out at a gym three times weekly using the same exercises she taught me. Presto, I was free.
And I have been faithful to the plan with the result that I am more fit today (including specifically core strength) than I have been in years. I am still limited in my ability to walk any distance to speak of, and I am confident that the issue is hip flexors demanding a ruthless frequency of stretching.
No one could have prepared me for the excruciatingly slow pace at which I have recovered from the fusion. My mind would have been incapable of grasping the reality of it all, because I have never been so impacted in my entire life. Very happy to finally have days when I feel absolutely ebullient for a change.
When we get to the point of needing such a procedure to be done, we simply do it rather than be crippled for the rest of our lives. Now, 9 months out, I am feeling glad I did it.
Lumber fusion isn't for sissies :-)