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When Kumar Vasudevan, MD, a WashU Medicine neurosurgeon at Christian Hospital, meets with patients to discuss if spine surgery is right for them, he shares that their path to pain relief starts before he puts on his surgical scrubs and extends after the operation is complete.

But the minor twinge that started after one of her regular weight-lifting sessions soon grew into intense shoulder pain with accompanying arm and wrist weakness that threatened to sidetrack her busy life. She had a ruptured disc in her cervical (neck) spine.

Imagine waking up one day with a strange sensation in your legs. It’s not pain exactly, but it’s not normal — you don’t quite feel like your brain is coordinating with your limbs.

Bill Bunch’s favorite activities include golfing, tending to his yard, and playing catch with his grandson. Each one became more difficult and less enjoyable for the retiree during a six-year span in which a worsening back condition affected his hips, legs, and feet.

Two wheels sped down a rural Missouri highway, and a 14-year-old fell in love. “It was a freedom feeling,” Tom Waller says, more than six decades after his first motorcycle ride. “And I’ve never lost it.

Think of the word “infertility,” and you might picture a couple without children struggling to get pregnant or stay pregnant. But there is another set of people — those who have successfully conceived and given birth to one or more children — who struggle with infertility, too.

Sophia suffered from epilepsy that for years disrupted her life and put severe limitations on her future. But after receiving a groundbreaking procedure from the pediatric neurology team at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Sophia, now 18, is seizure free.

The statistics are devastating: Sudden unexpected infant death is the No. 1 cause of death in babies age 29 days to 1 year old.

Some sisters imagine what it might be like to have and raise their kids close together. Few, however, get to experience giving birth to their babies on the exact same day, at the same hospital, delivered by the same doctor. It sounds like a fictionalized movie storyline. But for two St. Louis sisters, this was their reality.

Martha Williams checked off a goal on her bucket list in April 2019. She qualified for, and ran, in the Boston Marathon. Although it's an accomplishment only a small percentage of runners can claim, Williams' story might not sound particularly extraordinary -- that is, unless you begin the story in December 2010.