[annapurna]

Without a lot of detail it's difficult to give a firm answer but my first reaction is to tell you to pay attention what your body's telling you. Pain is weird and difficult to use as an absolute gauge for how 'bad' you really are. You might be as bad as your doctor and neurological symptoms seem to be saying you are.

If it was me, I'd work as quickly as I could on getting a second opinion but also continue down the path of the surgery. Depending on how bad the films look I'd delay the actual surgery until I got the second opinion but get all the insurance approvals, blood work, etc. all sorted out in case the second opinion was as bad as the first. I don't know how much of an over-reaction this is so I'm taking the attitude that you have very limited time before something needs to be done and advising from that standpoint. I hope that this turns out to be less severe than that.