1st, ignore the icon, I hit it by mistake and don't know how to undo it [and don't remember what it means].Sometime over the last day or so, I have read some posts about memory loss problems that some of you are experiencing. I want to share a non-cancer experience of my own that may be of some help. 16 months ago at age 63 and in seemingly good health, I awoke on Jan.6,04 and realized something weird was happening to my left eye. No pain, altho I felt a little disorientated, that eye just wasn't functioning. So I went to work and called my optometrist who could see me at 3:30 p.m. I muddled through the day,arrived at his office and after a cursory check, he decided to take my blood pressure-which was off the chart. He immediately sent me to my husband's internist[I only had a gyn doc because I was healthy-right]. By 4:30 it was determined I had a stroke. Medications started and numerous tests,etc., etc. later, the results were that I have lost all sight in the left eye,and have lost alot of cognition memory.What an effect that has on one's life!![I spent many yrs. teaching English and Social Studies at the high school level, and I have to go to the dictionary to look up the spelling of everything now and dates in History-or for the next week of our life-forget it.]About 6 weeks after the stroke and the meds were taking effect, I realized I had to do something to reconnect to the world. I was sleeping a good bit of the day, and would be awake at night. So I wandered down to the computer and started playing solitare. At 1st I was AWFUL, couldn't connect anything, missed plays, etc. Then a friend told me about Bookworm[www.PopCapgames.com][ I think]and I tried that. It was the answer to making my brain start to function again-perhaps because I have always been a word person and I love to read. I alternated between solitare and Bookworm for hrs. during those many months of long nights until I felt like I could finally communicate with the world again. Those 2 simple,yet brain challenging games helped get me going again. Today, I keep a daily calendar of our schedule, keep a Websters Dict. handy,and shudder when I reread e-mails and posts and see my mistakes. I do believe that we can regain some lost brain function if we work hard at it. I can't relate to chemical or radiation related memory loss but I hope this will help someone stretch. As I tell my 14 yr old grandson-- the dictionary is your best friend. Amy