AJ,
The operation is relatively minor and not too painful at all. Whilst the outcome and experience will vary from patient to patient I have seen many , many patients have them inserted and our experiences have not been too dis-similar.
My guess is that your doctor would put you in hospital to trial you if he hasn't already, as it would be a waste of time to endure the operation if it was not going to give you pain relief. There are different cocktails of medications that maybe used and this is patient/doctor specific.
The pump is inserted in a pocket made under the skin, usually in the lower ,lateral abdomen below the belt line.
The catheter is threaded from the pump under the skin around to the back so there are NO wires meaning no restrictions to swimming , bathing etc.
It takes a little getting used to and sometimes gets knocked on bench tops etc but it soon becomes second nature to you.
The pump is not started straight away in hospital and is then titrated very slowly to establish the exact right dose that will give you pain relief without side effects. Here in Australia the whole process would probably take about 2 weeks in hospital, I am not sure how it would be in other countries.
You may get some headaches in the early days post op as you adjust to having fluid pumped into the intrathecal space but I found this not too worrying. This also is not the case in everyone's experience.
Since my pump 7 years ago I have managed to eliminate all pain relief apart from the Morphine 9mgs per day. This is a huge difference to what I was having before my surgery.
I wish you heaps of luck, we will all have different experiences but sometimes it is nice to hear a positive one! Tayla.