My cancer has been unchanged for a year, until now.

Three weeks ago, I woke with a numb hand. I thought I had slept on it wrong. As the day progressed, the numbness receded, but my hand never returned completely to normal. It remained slightly weak. I found myself dropping things with a little weight. My brother was coming for a visit. Since it was only a minor inconvenience, I put it on the back burner.

At the same time, I noticed that I was having trouble with word games I play, especially ones that are timed. In a month, I dropped from finding 40 words in a minute to between 20 and 25. Part of the problem was that I was slower. I also could no longer remember words that I had already played, dropping my accuracy. In a four week period, I went from winning 95% of my games to winning zero.

I also began to reverse letters. I might spell place, palce. I would correct it to plcae before eventually getting it right. For a writer, that is difficult. Having to back and fix every sentence is time consuming and frustrating. I gradually quite writing, using my brother's presence as an excuse.

However, I was starting to have headaches. I suffer from migraines. These headaches were in a different place than usual and felt strange. Once Oliver left, being a writer, I listed my symptoms and went to the doctor. I thought perhaps I was suffering from the early signs of dementia. The only sign that didn't fit the scenario was my hand.

At first, the doctor tried to convince me that my headaches were stress related. He seemed unconcerned about the memory problems and just told me to stop playing games for a while. When I insisted that something wasn't right, he scheduled me for a brain MRI. I think he did it to humor me more than anything.

I got the results of the MRI the next evening. My symptoms were the result of the breast cancer metastasizing to the brain. I see the doctor tomorrow evening and will know more then. Please keep me in your prayers.