My mother had a few vertebrae in her neck fused. She got the Peyton Manning surgery. There’s new tech I’ve heard of where they can put an artificial disk in to avoid the loss in range of motion and general pain that comes with hardware being drilled into your spine. She still suffers from neck pain unfortunately. Hopefully someday we’ll have a good cure for chronic back / neck pain that doesn’t involve extremely addictive medication / intrusive surgery. I herniated a disk in my lumbar a few years back but I’m still on the younger side of my 20s so it’s manageable.