Stenosis is narrowing of the intervertebral disc space. The narrowing can be the cause of the disc protrusion or the result of trauma to the spine that cause the protrusion and so this is an added symptom.

(i am not a doctor and so anything I tell you may either be offbase or just simply wrong but I will explain it as I understand it)

from what I have read about your cervical/thoracic spine, you are going to end up haveing 2 levels of fusion because there is not a prosthetic appliance being made for the thoracic spine. You may end up with a cervical plate that joins both your lowest cervical vertabrae to the uppermost thoracic vertabrae and end up having a loss of mobility but also a dramatic increase in your ability to enjoy life again. There are many new devices being created and tested in the world of spinal surgery and you may be lucky enough to be the recipient of something that could set the entire course of surgery on a new road or you may recieve the gold standard of fusion.

Regardless of what you hear from so many out there that have either had poor results or had a poor experience with their surgeon, there are a lot of positives to getting "fixed" and with a good doctor that is understanding of his/her limitations and also explains to you the possible outcomes of your surgery in a language you can understand, this could be fantastic for you. (albiet a very long and very, very, painful road)

you should go to Spineuniverse.Com and look up spinal stenosis and while you are at that sire, you can also look at many of the new technologies being developed and also find stuies being done in the spine world.

Good luck,
brian