”Doctor, please help, you must cure my husband’s disease, our whole family cannot live without him!” Looking at the patient’s wife’s eager gaze, I had to say, “We will do our best, but you must know that his best time for surgery has passed, and we cannot guarantee the outcome of the surgery now.” This scene has been repeatedly staged around countless patients and doctors, and is seen in movies and TV shows. Before I get to the main topic today, let me tell a true story about a 49-year-old man, called Mr. A, who suffers from severe cervical spondylosis. His current symptoms are: numbness and weakness in both hands, muscle atrophy in his right hand, unable to even hold chopsticks; weakness in both lower limbs, spastic gait, unstable walking, and needing help to go to the bathroom. When he visited my clinic, I immediately gave him a cervical spine X-ray and MRI, and found that: the spinal canals of the cervical 4/5 and 5/6 gaps were very narrow, the crura medullaris in the middle of the spinal canal had been severely compressed, and there was a high signal representing neuroedema in the crura medullaris. The diagnosis was very clear that he had a mixed cervical spondylosis with severe symptoms of a predominantly cremasteric type. The treatment was also very clear and should be surgical. Before doing the surgery ah, the doctor must introduce the surgical procedure, postoperative results and surgical risks to the patient and the family, and sign the mutually approved surgical consent form . I said to the patient’s family, “Mr. A’s condition is very serious, the cervical crestal medulla is severely compressed for a long time, there has been partial necrosis, post-operative recovery is not possible, we will do our best to completely remove the nerve compression, but the post-operative effect, how far he can recover depends on his personal constitution and luck!” The patient’s wife was reluctant, so the scene in front of the article appeared, which was very touching. However, the doctor is not a god, there is no ability to raise the dead. Later, after repeated communication, the patient and his family signed the letter. We performed the cervical decompression and fixation as planned, and the surgery went very well. After the surgery, we nervously observed the patient’s recovery process. Unfortunately, the patient’s symptoms barely improved, and six months after the surgery, I had to tell the patient and family that the likelihood of recovery in the future was estimated to be slim. The purpose of telling this story is to tell you that surgery should not be delayed at will, and that there is an optimal time for surgery. So why? It is necessary to talk about what crestal cervical spondylosis is first. Simply put, cervical spondylosis is a clinical condition caused by the compression of the crestal medulla by the degenerated intervertebral discs, hyperplastic bones and hypertrophic ligaments at the edge of the vertebral body. The most crucial thing here is the compressed cremaster tissue. The main component of the crestal medulla is neuronal cells. All the instructions from the brain, the commander-in-chief of the human body, have to pass through the neurons of the cervical vertebrae before they can be transmitted to all the tissues of the body; moreover, all kinds of information from all parts of the human body have to be fed back to the brain through the neurons of the cervical vertebrae, so as to complete the brain’s fine regulation of the human body. The complexity of this far exceeds that of any computer in the world. Unfortunately: this neuron is very fragile and cannot regenerate after apoptosis. The problem is that cremasteric cervical spondylosis happens to be a compression of a fragile, non-regenerating neuron. If the compression is not removed in time, the neuron will die and, note, there is no regeneration and no possibility of replacement with the current state of medical care. At this point, even if the compression is removed surgically, the neuron has no chance of being revived. The best solution is to remove the compression and free the neurons when the patient has just developed symptoms but the neurons have not yet died. This is the best time for surgery. If the best time is missed, the effect of surgery will be weakened and the recovery will not be very satisfactory. However, it is still important to remove the crista medullaris compression tissue as early as possible to prevent the remaining neurons from continuing apoptosis and necrosis. In this sense, once surgery is indicated for cremasteric cervical spondylosis, it is important to undergo surgery as soon as possible to achieve the best surgical results, because this surgery cannot be avoided just because you delay. Of course, this is not only true for cremasteric cervical spondylosis, but most surgeries cannot be delayed at will.