<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hello everyone Thank you for all the responses we recieved including several from folks who knew nothing about bone grafts or spinal fusion but just wanted to wish Gail well. Before the summary of responses, i have to tell you what happened. On Tuesday we saw the surgeon and he told us that a discectomy wouldn't be enough and that she needed spinal fusion and it was set for that Friday. On thursday they were to call us to tell us what time the surgery would be on Friday. Well on thursday afternoon the surgeon called and said that he had reviewed the MRI films and decided that she didn't need spinal fusion and that he would be doing just the discectomy. She had the discectomy this past friday and there were no complications. She came home on saturday. (Other than the fact that she passed out while we were outside for a walk today, and i had to carry her inside) she is doing as well as can be expected and so far has tremendous pain at the surgical sight but no radicular pain and no numbness. Now the brief summary; Most important, 5 people responded that they had fusion and bone grafts with no complications. One person had a bone graft taken from someone else but without any problems. Several people highly reccomended that before the surgery, Gail have her bone density tested. This certainly makes sense and we called the surgeon's office to ask that it done. We were pleasantly suprised toi learn that they had already done it as part of the pre-op tests (and i intend to find out the results and then ask you foks what it means). The other response i got which suprised me because i simply didn't know was being informed that once a Celiac goes on a GF diet, the malapsorbtion ends and bone density should recouip to normal levels. That was certainly encouraging. Again, thank you all Mark & Gail