My doctor said that my fusion went very well. He also made the comment to my wife afterward that after going in there, he understood why I was in so much pain on my left side of my body.
I am 6 days post op and I am in considerably less pain than the begging of the week. I am still in a fair amount of pain but as I said, alot less than 5-6 days ago.
The hardest part of this is when I see my wife struggling to get things done and not just getting up and doing all I can to help. I do recomend you take it easy as possible in order to makethe healing proccess progress as your doctor has planned for you.
Good luck to you if you plan to do this surgery. I am not all the way through the other side of this but I will try to update.