Yeah, I'm going to make a nice cup of green tea when I get off the computer. I'm so used to not putting anything in my mouth after 7 p.m. that I forget to drink.

They were surprised (at Cornell I mean), that I'm not up peeing all night. They asked me. "How many times do you get up in the middle of the night?" I answered "Once". They said "that's it??" I said "yeah why" but I didn't get an answer. I had to fill out a "feeling temperature" I think it was called.

It's a chart with a thermometer on it. One of the guys said 'what is the number of your pain level". (Today my back and joints were killing me). So I laughed and said "I have degenerative joint disease, mark me as 70". So he did.

Never heard of feeling themometers.

I filled out pages and pages of questions of how do I feel, do I have bad feelings about myself. Do I have depression, blah blah.

I answered them all. Hey it's a study, and someone has to read these right??

Oh, I met a woman who was waiting for the access-a-ride. She was sitting there on the stoop smoking a cigarette. She said "I have brain lesions". and I said 'you have MS??" and she said "that's what they thought, then they thought I had Alzheimers because I forget stuff". "Then I remembered that I had a traumatic brain injury when I was a kid, so these lesions are from the brain injury". I said 'oh you poor thing"

Then she said "I'm wearing a pump" and I said "an insulin pump??" and she said "no, a pain pump". I said 'you have pain in your brain, and they gave you a pump??" And she said "no, I have pain in my body, my arms and my legs"

I felt really bad. She said "I'm only 48 years old and I can't work any more and I need this medicine but medicare won't cover it".

I found out she had the medtronic pump (the older kind), inplanted in her.

I said "then you don't go to the bathroom do you"? She said "oh my god, how did you know"?. I explained that my husband used to be on the Fentanyl patch.

She said she had just started smoking again. She couldn't help it.

To be honest, I just said (to myself), Oh my god, some people have such misery in their life. I just wished her well and said she would be in my prayers. And she was.

I'll tell you, with all the people coming in and out of Cornell, well, I started to count whatever blessings I had.