Hi Risby.

I'd email you directly but apparently I can't until I post 20 messages.....

So you'll have been in a hard collar for over a month! Wow! I'm so sorry.

The first cutter I saw was a neurosurgeon and he wanted to do C5-C6 and C6-C7 and a hard collar for 2-3 weeks followed by a soft collar for 2-3 weeks more. He also did not seem very responsive to my concerns related to these weeks in light of my MS-limitations.

I got a second opinion from an orthopaedic surgeon. A much younger guy who came very highly recommended by my PT. ("If I had to have this operation, this is the guy I'd use.") He thought I just needed work on C6-C7 and, unless he encounters something during surgery that the MRI and X-ray didn't show, he thought I could use a soft collar for the first few weeks.

We'll see. . . .

My biggest concern -- well, somewhere near the top of my list of my biggest concerns -- is the (are the?) logistics of putting on the AFO while wearing whatever collar I'm wearing.

I love that, among the recommendations sent me in the "So You're Going to Have Back/Neck Surgery" packet was the importance of walking -- a little more every day. "By the time you're ready for your 6 week checkup, you should be walking a mile every day."

Really?

I can't remember the last time I walked a mile.

But, back in the day, I'd easily walk 10 miles on a Saturday, just roaming the lakeshore and Lincoln Park in Chicaga.

(For the past 15 or so years, home has been Chapel Hill, NC but the original home was Chicaga as you might tell from the use of the terminal "A" in the name of the name.)

I've also heard conflicting things about what I'll be able to eat those first days. Liquid diet only?

BTW, thanks for the tip on bendy straws.

I've rambled on enough.

Any/all other random thoughts/suggestions/warnings/advice would be *most* welcome, Risby.

And hang in there for the next coupla weeks.

Jim