6 month post op - status quo - low back good, neck terrible

I saw the doctor this week. The lumbar x-rays look great. The low back is really great - its only sore at times no pain!!! I do feel a lot more popping in my hips, shoulder and wrists than I did presurgery. My arm is still sporadically numb and tingling. My left ankle is sore. So, although my back feels good things are still out of whack for me. But when I wake up in the morning now I often forget I had a low back problem!!!!! Awesome feeling!

However, my neck still hurts at a pain level of 7 most days with no improvement whatsoever. I will have a cortizone injection in the facet joints on Wednesday this week. Let's home that provides some relief. He's the 4th doctor who feels that this neck pain is just coincidence, bad luck, bad genes and bad timing - the neck pain is not a result of the surgery. That is somewhat reassuring if I should need surgery on my neck in the future that it won't necessarily throw off another part of my spine. But I'm not even considering that option at this point.

I am still having severe anxiety as well as a result of all this pain and terrible fear for my future and the future of my family. I had the doctor look at every level of my spine and tell me that no more discs were degenerating. Its so out of my control and logically I know that but its hard to deal with.

But, I'm here, I'm able to enjoy a lot of life and trying to work this all out.