One day, while sitting in my home studio, playing with synths and testing new ideas, I started noticing something strange: I kept playing the wrong keys with my right hand. Consistently.

I didn’t pay much attention to it at first, but I made a mental note.

Around the same time, my back pain became more persistent. I had experienced back pain before, even back in my home country, and a couple of manual therapy sessions would usually make it disappear. So naturally, I dismissed the pain as no big deal and made appointments for several manual therapy sessions.

A few weeks and many hard-earned dollars later, the relief never came. Then I signed up for acupuncture. No relief. Instead, the pain intensified. I started limping on my right leg, fell on the subway once, but worst of all, I realized that I was slowly losing the ability to play music.

One night, I was walking home, and as I approached my building, I reached for the keys in my pocket. To my horror, there were no keys!

This can’t be! I know I put the keys in my right pocket!

I reached in with my left hand, and the keys were right there.

Right hand: no keys. Left hand: keys.

What is this sorcery??

I had no idea what was happening. I was still firmly convinced that manual therapy, acupuncture, herbs, or some combination of the three would eventually fix everything.

During one of my manual therapy sessions, the therapist became concerned about the lack of improvement and told me I needed to see a neurologist as soon as possible.

I found a local neurologist, an incredibly kind and empathetic doctor, who, after a thorough physical exam, referred me for an MRI. Luckily, the international student health insurance I’d reluctantly been paying $40 a month for covered most of the medical costs.

At the time, $40 felt like a fortune. It was 2001. I could practically eat for a week on that.

The next day, once the scans were ready, I went back to see the neurologist.

He looked at the scans.

Then he looked at me.

Then back at the scans.

Then back at me.

Without saying anything, he picked up the phone and spoke to someone about “a patient.” He hung up and turned to me.

“Tomorrow, you’re going to see a neurosurgeon. You have a seven-centimeter tumor in your spine. Hopefully, it’s benign.”

There was just one problem.

I didn’t actually know what the words “tumor” or “benign” meant in English. I don’t think they used those words on The Sopranos.

So my reaction was basically: okay. Another manual therapy specialist.