I had surgery in May. The pain was far worse after the surgery in the very short term. However, after maybe 4-5 days it was much better because the bone is supported by the plate and isn't moving around. Whether you need surgery of not is going to depend on the likelihood of the bone solidly fusing back together. For me, the two ends were in separate zip codes so I really had no choice. I'm still in PT, though I started racing again a couple of weeks after the surgery.