Today was my third day on the fourth floor of the Scott Bieler Clinical Sciences Center. The view is is amazing. City Hall, the Gold Dome, the Liberty ladies, Central Terminal...and the gaunt young man in high top sneakers sitting with his mom and an IV in his arm. Undergoing chemotherapy.

We are so fortunate to have Roswell Park in the heart of our city. A little green card unlocks the door to doctors and sophisticated devices; trials and treatments; expertise, experience and empathy. Live music greets patients making their way through the main doors. Art graces the walls. It's easy to forget that life and death haunt these halls.

I am a Roswell patient. Three years ago, a neurosurgeon screwed my head to a plate and treated a tumor on the left side of my brain with radiation. The good news is, the tumor was benign and the radiation was successful. Although I am still losing hearing, it's only on one side and my hearing aid can just be reprogrammed to compensate for the loss. No biggie.

Now the sixth cranial nerve on my left side has inexplicably become paralyzed. The muscles can’t pull my left eye into focus causing some pretty serious double vision. The good news is that this crazy crossed-eyedness was not caused by either a stroke or an aneurysm. It has nothing to do with the acoustic neuroma. And--baddaboom--I have two eyes. One is still working just fine. Ignore the patch. 

Although I, too, have an IV in my arm, unlike the young man in the red high tops across from me, I am in no pain, and in no real danger. I'm pumping up on steroids, not poison. I am suffering from a major aggravation, not a frightening medical condition. 

Roswell makes me grateful. Grateful that I have two eyes, and that one of them still works. Grateful that I have a hearing aid that can be reprogrammed. Grateful that the diagnosis is benign and not malignant. Grateful that we have Roswell in our midst.

I am feeling a bit gray lately. But there is hope. I just need to remember that things can always be worse. That others are suffering far more than I am. 

I have been called pathologically optimistic. This may be my most valuable attribute today.