
I had my one year post-op visit with the Orthopedic Spine Surgeon today. The fusion is 100% complete and shows good positioning

I still have some disc space narrowing at C4-C5 which I knew about

(we decided to fuse C5-C7 and wait until the future, or maybe never if I'm lucky, to do a higher fusion if I should develop symptoms of C4-C5 disc problems in the future).
I still some residual numbness in my left hand pointer finger with some minor (like 1 on a 10 scale) pain down the arm at times

If this keeps up the OSS said I could do an epidural steroid injection to calm down the nerve. I'll make that decision if it gets worse and before the year is out (he's out of network for me and now I've met my out of network deductible - so if it at all bothers me I'll do an ESI before 12/31/07).
All in all I went from pain on a 10/10 scale to 1/10 (2/10 on a bad day) and am SO GLAD I did the surgery

One year later I can look back and realize what a good decision it was for me to have this done - and I hope anyone reading this is fortunate enough to have the amount of overall symptom relief I have had.
If you have any questions or if I can help anyone in any way let me know. I'll keep lurking on the boards for a while.