Had my L4-L5 fusion done on 2/16/2012 and I am doing great. I thought I would wake up in terrible pain but that was not the case at all. All of the back and leg pain I had was gone. They had me up walking same day of surgery and I felt great. They had where I could just push a button every 6 minutes to get a dose of pain meds. but I was only pushing it every couple of hours just to make sure I did'nt start hurting.They only took me to phy. therapy twice and I was walking fine and climbing stairs. They said there was no reason to come back and I was allowed to get up and walk by myself as I wanted. Dr. said he removed alot of scar tissue that was pinching the nerves. He was not able to pull L4 back into place because it would take to much tension. He said I still had damage at L5-S1 but not enough that he wanted to fuse it. My surgery was a PLIF and I have about a 8" incesion. I had put this surgery off twice because of all the horror stories I had read. I wish I had done this before. I could not have asked for a better outcome than what I have had. As I am sitting here now I have no pain what so ever. I would say after the surgery my pain would only be about a 3 and that was only if I was trying to get out of bed.