Naturally it depends on the type of surgery.
I had a micro-diskectomy which is basically outpatient surgery. I was up walking around right after the surgery.
It's simply amazing what they can do.
My wife had the full fusion with the titanium cage to fuse the spine together.
It just crushed me to see her like that. She's up, about and smiling and next month will be a year.
Regardless of what you face, they can work wonders.
We found a lot of support forums on the internet for this too. They even are talking about new "replacement disks" that are approved by the DFA, although I don't know how good they are.