Well, I went for the surgery. It felt like someone took a bat to my low back after the hospital meds wore off and the morning after I felt like I had a severe bruise. The ice and pain meds help tremendously. I'm going on day 4 and feeling pretty good, getting up and about and able to walk around gingerly at first and more normal today. Aside from the bruised feeling...the low back pain in the joint seems to be gone, but it's still hard to tell this early. I don't notice any loss of balance after having the proprioceptive nerves cauterized...can't even tell at all so far. I'll share more later.