BE PREPARED TO:1. Sleep Upright and On Your Back for several weeks if not up to one month or more.Plan accordingly. I bought a temperpedic- like foam wedge online for about $70. And a cozy, foam interior, organic cotton covered neck pillow. Both worth every penny. I propped additional pillows on top of wedge and one for my lower back and a large pillow for under my knees. I played around with the different sleep positions before surgery.2. Experience Back and Neck Pain from having to sleep upright or with head elevated. This is true especially if you already have some kind of back/neck problems.This pain was continuous for me at night. I would wake up many times from this pain and have to stretch as delicately as possible to get some relief. My loving husband bought a small massager with 4 different heads at Walgreen's and a heating pad. Both were life savers. Because you don't want to do any stretching or movement of any kind in the first days if not weeks, this poses great difficulty to relieve the pain through the normal process of stretching or massage. 3. Ensure your body, back and neck feels relaxed, stretched, exercised, massaged etc before surgery. You will not have a chance to really move the body for a while even though doctors say you can begin exercise sometimes after 2 weeks. It's not realistic at all.4. For the Unexpected: Some people have an easier recovery, some people have a prolonged and difficult recovery. You truly cannot know until after your surgery.5. Experience Unexpected Pain that your Doctor probably won't tell you about or will speak about in a casual manner.a) Upon awakening from surgery, I had SEVERE pain in my throat from the tube that is normally put down the throat and that they had to pump my stomach for some reason. That pain was fiery and excruciating. It lasted many days. My loving husband found an organic throat spray that I used consistently in the first week. The pain is more aggravated at night due to sleeping on the back, the mouth falls open, the already scorched throat gets dry which aggravates the first condition.b) The first night of the surgery I awoke to a dry, burning, left eye. The pain was so unusual we didn't have a reference point to treat it. We called the Doctor at home, it was so bad. My husband went out for natural tears lubricating eye drops which did provide enough relief to go back to sleep. The doctor said that they put a substance in the eyes when under anesthesia for longer than 2 hours and that is what caused my reaction.c) Upon awakening the next day I had such a severe neck ache. We went to the doctor for our next day follow up and he surmised that it was due to the position he placed me on the table while doing surgery.6. Expect Pain Other Than The FaceI did not really have any facial pain. The pain I have experienced has been under my right jaw and neck7. Expect One Side of the Face/Jaw/Neck/Ears to have Pain and/or Discomfort and Not the OtherThe Doctor worked on one side of the face at a time. He is right handed. The right side of my face and neck has looked and felt tighter and painful than the left side where I did not experience much pain. Because the right side was so much tighter I have really experienced a lot of pain.8. Expect Discomfort near/On your Ears and Side of Your Face Once You Are Able to Sleep on Your SideThis can last for months9. Expect and Prepare For Recovery to Be Longer Than You Thinka) If you are an active person, really prepare to not be able to get back fully to your activities for 6 - 8 weeks.I just went to my first Yoga class after 6 1/2 weeks. Downward dog would have been impossible sooner.b) If I am more active than I should have been, my neck and lower face will tell me in the form of swelling and tightness!!c) After 6 1/2 weeks, I still wake up every day with swelling and some discomfort and still use my trusty bags of peas to relieve it.d) I took some Percocet every day for 6 weeks for paine) My recovery was an unexpectedly painful. Once I got into the swing of things I was able to manage it.10. Must Haves:a) A loving person or caretaker to wait on you hand and foot - in my case it was 5 days.b) Many bags of peasc) Throat sprayd) Pain killers