With 29 years of general practice under my belt and a history of high school and college summer jobs that involved furniture moving, I was not surprised that my back was chronically sore.  However, it became progressively worse.  When my left leg started to get weak, I knew I needed to get it checked out asap. Assuming I had a bulging or herniated disc that would need some routine surgery or PT, I was shocked to learn that I had a very large tumor in my spinal cord, from L2-L4. I was told to immediately find a neurosurgeon with spinal oncology expertise.  To say the least, this was devastating news.  I needed to get things rolling asap, as my leg was getting weaker, and my low back, more painful by the week.  I had a complete ‘Neuroaxis MRI scan’ with and without contrast from brain to cauda equina, to rule out a drop metastasis.  I was able to find a talented neurosurgeon with the requisite experience in North Seattle and was on the table for 7.5 hours of microsurgical dissection within three weeks of the tumor being discovered.