Conquering the Beast - Part II

OK. So here's what happened. Amidst all the grinding and clanking inside my head, bells and whistles started going off. I was in an entirely different type of search mode when I pulled up a new Google window, exercising my mental, mechanical, and "electronical" prowess.

I wanted one I could get my hands on immediately, but the one at Radio Shack looked shitty. Best Buy didn't sell the kind I needed. I finally came across one at Circuit City, exactly what I had in mind, and the Saginaw store is only an hour's drive from here so I ordered it for pickup in the store. I bought a USB external hard drive.

I brought it home and gutted the HDD from my Pavilion (hence, the transplant), installed it in the external drive, and hooked it up to my husband's computer - AND THERE WAS ALL MY SHIT!

I am so amazing, I should be patented or something. I figured that one out all on my own, after the "experts" said "too bad."

Although I ordered a PC last Friday, it won't be ready until Wednesday and I need to work NOW, so I informed DH that I was appropriating his computer in the meantime. Of course, he was pissed (because I'd have access to his "personal" things he hides from me, like chats with his "girlfriend." OH.OH.OH. Aside: Last week he tells her that I am "shorty life," to which she responded, "I'm sorry" {since when does the "girlfriend" of a cheating "husband" feel sorry that his wife is dying???} and he said "I don't need pity," which then prompted her to tell him how brave he was - I'm the one who's fucking dying but HE'S the one who's brave????? What-the-fuck-ever!!!). He was even more pissed when I said I wanted the tower brought down to my office from the upstairs bedroom where he had it, arguing with me about it, even though there's no regular fucking phone line up there for me to hook up my OTHER job's equipment, only the ethernet cable, and I need both.

So he brings it down and - strangely - the NIC won't work, so I can't get internet access to do my fucking work anyhow. And of course, "What did you do to my computer?" even though 'twas not I who unhooked and moved it.

Conquering the Beast

My closest friend of the past 6 years has passed from this realm to the next, leaving me bereft and suffering. We spent so much time together, it was as though we'd become one, inseparable as that piece of duct tape that gets folded over onto itself after you rip it off the roll. I knew my friend inside and out, doing my best to help when a virus struck and dancing with glee with recovery, all the while -naively - expecting the relationship to last. The passing was so sudden, so unexpected, I was left stunned and alternating between tears of grief and rage, finally moved beyond devastation by the transplant gift that had been left behind.

July 24, 2008 - Rest in Peace

HP Pavilion 310n

You were a good computer.

Cause of death? The decision (whether made by Hewlett-Packard or by Microsoft, I know not), to load XP System Recovery software on the hard drive instead of giving you a FUCKING DISK like they used to (you want a disk, you gotta pay for it, even though you technically already paid for it when you bought the computer).

System Recovery and its related shit is stored in a protected partition on the hard drive, and no software CDs of any kind, including the OS, were included when I bought the computer NEW from Best Buy. The files are right there and CDs cost too much and blah blah blah (the bullshit I was fed the first time I used this function a couple of years ago, by some dough-head at HP). Fine in theory, but what happens when your OS becomes corrupted and you cannot access that function, even in Safe Mode?

In April, I was moaning about my computer being slow and locking up all the time, supposedly because I didn't have enough RAM (annoying little pop-up system messages told me so), so I went and got some more RAM: $60 for 2 cards to the PC's maximum capacity of 512 MB. Yes, I spent that much money on a 6-year-old computer. I was so amazed at how much faster it was after that, I could have kicked myself in the head for not having upgraded years ago.

The all-gooey-inside feeling didn't last long, though.

I started getting system pop-ups again, I checked and found that my system was only running 256 instead of 512. I don't know why this happened, but I thought about calling Centon about a replacement (lifetime warranty!!!). Unfortunately, I was working (and it was the middle of the night), so I started up my Sony Digital Voice Editor, but it wouldn't do anything. Task Manager showed it "not responding." This happened once before and I just had to uninstall and reinstall it, so I tried that. It still didn't work. I didn't get too worked up at that point, knowing all was well and good in the weeks prior and I could roll the PC back to a restore point.

Wrong.

System Restore chose not to cooperate, so I tried System Recovery. I've used this function twice since I bought the PC, both times using the Big Daddy and completely reformatting the user partition and starting from scratch. This actually takes a lot of convincing on your part (ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? ALL DATA WILL BE LOST - no shit, Sherlock), but this time I was not having the problems I had before and chose the "nondestructive" recovery, which claimed it would not harm my files and other software. Click. Click. Click. It starts its thing and I twiddle my thumbs for 30 minutes.

Time to reboot. No problem. HP and Windows screens. The famous chimes that cry at startup. Then.... the HP registration screen? Ummm. OK. It's already filled out with the junk from before, so I click "Next" and move on. Finally, up comes the sound card test screen, where you tell the system whether or not you hear sound. I hear no sound, but the little asshole in the sweater doesn't give me any help in figuring out the problem. Instead, he opened his virtual "door" and left my screen. Prick. I'll work it out later, I think, and clicked "Next" one more time.

That was the last "Next" my Pavilion ever saw in its life.

The computer froze. Not a component was stirring, not even the mouse. After about 20 minutes of cussing, I killed it at the switch. When restarting, the Windows screen loaded and waited, then went black. After a few minutes, there's a pop-up telling me that I had an LSASS.EXE SYSTEM ERROR, when trying to update the password, the return status indicates that the password is not correct.... then suddenly it shuts down and restarts. Again and again. I hit F8 to get into Safe Mode, but it was the same error, as it was with LNG. It would have looped like this for all of eternity had I let it, but I had mercy enough to pull the plug.

NOW what the fuck do I do? My work's on there. My photos are on there. ALL OF MY SPREADSHEETS are on there.

I got onto another PC, furiously searching the web for an answer. There's 800 million tech forums out there, someone's got to have an answer; I know I'm not the first person this has happened to. I was right, and multiple people had posted on multiple forums about THE EXACT SAME ISSUE: lsass.exe system error, password, blah blah blah, and no CD issued. Those responding on these forums were OH.SO.HELPFUL. Most instantly threw out "Sasser virus" as the answer with a link to get rid of it, obviously not understanding the exact nature of the problem; after all, how are you going to click the link if you can't even boot the system? One wiseguy, seeing that there was no CD and snickering behind his hands, only asked "Who'd you pirate XP from?" without giving any kind of answer. Knowledgeable AND helpful. Another popular one was "XP failure, use your CD and reinstall." How do I fix it if I don't have a startup CD because THEY DID NOT ISSUE ONE WITH THE PC? Answer: Do a System Recovery. Yeah, that's helpful, seeing as how THE OS HAS TO FINISH LOADING TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT and since that's what's not working....

OH.MY.GOD.

I can deal with the fact that my computer died and I have to replace it, but my primary concern was all the stuff I had on there - photos of my kids, the only IRREPLACEABLE things on the computer - that had not been backed up yet and how do I get it off the disk? Again, the forums were oh-so-helpful in answering that question, too. Most just responded with some variation of "Too bad, the computer's screwed and so are you." Others suggested using (and paying through the nose for ) a data recovery service.

I was on my own. As usual. But I had little gears grinding hard inside my head.

I changed tacks, looking at stuff kind of related "around the edges" of my problem. Eventually I came across some information that, in a flash of clarity, made me realize those dudes on the tech forums just talk to hear the sound of their own voices (or to see their avatar proudly displayed as though it conveys some type of authority in the world of silicone and ether), imparting advice upon the desperate and the ignorant, all the while ignoring the single most important lesson ever taught in the history of mankind:

2 + 2 = 4

If the problem is the OPERATING SYSTEM, why is my data "screwed"? These are separate beasts prowling in jungles on separate continents, so to speak. And why do I need to pay for data recovery when the data files should not be corrupted, just because the OS files are? (And why can't Microsoft give you a motherfucking C: prompt when XP is installed on your system so you can fix the problem yourself, those dirty bastards!)

I conquered the beast. I'll tell you how, but next time. This post is too long.

To Flare Or Not To Flare

I love my neurologist dearly. She's one of only about 4 doctors I would (and have) trust with my life. But I think she's dead wrong on two counts:

1. She can't find any quick and SOLID proof that there is something else going on with me than just MS that is slowly but surely eating my life away from the inside out.
2. She's diagnosed me as remitting/relapsing MS even though I have never had any clear-cut "remission" of symptoms nor even any clear-cut "flares" for that matter, other than the bout of optic neuritis last summer.

Until now.

When the shit hit the fan with my body a couple of years ago, it started as a slight weakness in my right arm and leg. It was nothing that affected my life in any way, shape, or form other than being an irritation and a "subjective feeling" of being weak when my examination and testing routinely came back normal, with the exception of the times I've had "reactivation mono," which is essentially - and most people don't know this until they're afflicted - the Epstein-Barr virus you contracted in high school comes back to haunt you. There are markers in your blood that show you've had the virus, and some of those titers will never go away, ever, because you DID have it. Others of these markers go up and down, indicating a reactivation of the virus in your system.

**Quick aside here: It's fascinating to me that EBV has long been considered a culprit in the pathogenesis of MS, that it can reactivate at any time, particularly when ill or stressed, etc. (the exact same factors that can exacerbate an MS flare).

Anyhow, 1 year 11 months ago (dear Lord, has that much of my life been eaten up by this disease already???) I developed SUDDEN onset of PROFOUND weakness on my entire right side, which progressed over the next few days to include my entire left side and then started moving up to begin compromising not only my facial muscles - I developed facial droop highly suspicious for stroke or at least Bell's palsy and could neither eat nor drink for days, yet my doctor couldn't get me in any quicker than 2 weeks and ER doctors had previously dismissed me as a fake - and eventually my muscles of breathing and bowel and bladder function.

I was FUBAR'd for about a week and a half. Of course, by the time I got in to see my primary doctor, most of it had resolved except for the right-sided weakness, which was dismissed as "stress" and would best be treated under the care of a psychiatrist. (Yeah, she went there. And bought property. That's why I don't see their office anymore.) After that, I was pretty consistent until last July when the optic neuritis destroyed the vision in my right eye, eventually leading to my diagnosis of MS. All this time, though, I never had a "remission" as is defined by those who define such measures (usually for insurance billing purposes). After the optic neuritis, though, I started declining - gradually - and never having an acute "flare" (proven by MRI scans that no new active lesions were identified) but continuing to become progressively weaker and more fatigued and confused and depressed and at times maybe even clinically diagnosable as psychotic. But I was still classified as RRMS instead of - what in my opinion should be - secondary progressive MS or perhaps even primary progressive.

MS does not define me as a person, but it's a really big fucking irritation. I've tried to be all "yeah, whatever" about this whole thing, accepting and dealing with it and moving on with my life and all that happy horseshit. I ain't playing that game anymore, though. After only 23 short months, I am ready to take my marbles out of the circle and stop playing - and kick sand over the circle just because I'm pissed off about losing.

I had another of my epiphanies on life, the universe, and everything. It came yesterday, Saturday morning, after my dad came to my house to make sure I was up for work on time and found me on the floor of my office, unconscious and unresponsive. The pisser of it was, he actually walked in on the SECOND episode. I woke up around 7 a.m. with a massive Charley in my left calf that wouldn't let go and got up to put some Ben-Gay on my leg. As I was reaching up to put the tube back on top of my desk so the kids couldn't get it, I passed out and fell on the floor. I came to a little while later to my daughter sitting on the floor next to me, laying on my face and crying because I was someplace she knew I should not be and not responding. But I couldn't getup. Nothing worked right. I've been constantly dizzy (like 100% of the time, even moving my eyes in my head makes me keel over) for about a week now and even when I did finally get my arm and legs to obey in some fashion and tried to get up, the dizziness decided to call in unconsciousness for backup to keep me on the floor. Eventually I was able to speak and tell dad "no" when asked if I wanted an ambulance. He woke DH up, who saw me on the floor and started screaming, which scared my daughter even more, but he picked me - in all my bulk, even though I weigh as much as he does or more - off the floor.

I was fucked for the rest of the day. I'm still fucked. I always knew I was not long meant for this world, but I can say now that I see the end in sight and it really pisses me off. It pisses me off about losing and it pisses me off about giving up.

But maybe now someone (in the medical profession) will listen to me when I tell them something is wrong.

Unhealthy Obsession

I realized just now, at 6:41 a.m. on July 17, 2008, that I have an unhealthy obsession with data in general and the organization of data in particular.

I feel an overwhelming need to put everything in Excel. I think I would die if I didn't have access to it. Well, probably not DIE, but at least have a really big hole in the middle of my entity where Excel belongs.

My budget and bills and many other records are all neatly organized in Excel spreadsheets, each month its own separate sheet within the workbook, columns and rows keeping everything organized, colors and fonts to draw focus where needed, everything in order right down to the last comma and dollar sign.

I created a continuous yearly calendar with a section for notes for the month, each date consisting of two rows and one column, borders and numbering in place. It's easy to copy over to the next year, tweak a couple of formulas, and keep it going to the following year. I fiddled with the fonts and justification to make it aesthetically pleasing, but I didn't use any colors this time. Regardless, it's truly a work of art.

I used to do all of my billing and invoices for my independent contracting business in Word. They were neat and orderly, receiving a face lift now and then with font changes and lines and anything else I could use to make it stand out, distinguish it from the 40,572 other papers sitting on the doctor's desk, so he would remember to pay me. They served me well for more than 10 years, until earlier this year when I just couldn't resist the urge anymore: I was tired of adding lines manually on a calculator billing took forever doing it that way, the more accounts I worked (besides the fact that one of the kids stole my $65 printing calculator left over from my college accounting program days). Why am I torturing myself when Excel will do the work for me!?!? At first, I created billing sheets for each doctor and attached it to the invoice (with a note in the "details" pointing to the Excel data, of course!). Then recently I started sneaking copy-and-paste Excel tables into the invoices, to keep it all on one page and reduce the number of trees I contributed to murdering. Finally, I gave up and generated the entire invoice in Excel. Even that process has morphed recently, each invoice as a separate file now each DOCTOR as a separate "book" with each INVOICE a separate page within. Instead of hundreds of files in dozens of folders and subfolders, I now have 6 files - period.

The depths of my obsession should have become apparent when I made a "camping checklist" (I ranted about my camping stuff before) before my vacation recently so DH wouldn't forget things, said list proceeding immediately from his fingertips into the trashcan. "I know how to pack, I'm not stupid." Columns dividing gear, clothing, food, etc.

In retrospect, I can see that this isn't a new issue like my memory problems, something I can readily attribute to cognitive or psychiatric consequences of MS. In cleaning up my computer files - the time during which I decided to streamline the doc's accounting processes - I notice that I've been sneaking Excel worksheets into my life for years.

When You-Know-Who started bitching and moaning that I wasn't sending "her" money to her and filed a contempt motion against us for violation of the custody orders, I started a log: Each month I cut her a check for 1/2 of the girls' Social Security benefits received and recorded the date, amount, check number, and any amount she indicated to me (in writing!!!) to deduct, like 1/2 of their school lunch costs. After she cashed each check, I entered the date cleared by my bank.

Some dickweed keeps leaving my DVDs lying around, since putting them away when they're finished with them would be too easy, and many are lost, broken, or deeply scratched; another dickweed borrows them without asking then sells them on eBay. I have a list of all of the DVDs I've bought, separated into genre, with a column for those that are missing. (This was part of a document for my house insurance listing everything I owned, something about it being a cost of replacement policy.)

I didn't have the time or inclination to go buy real blueprint paper, so I made a grid to "blueprint" my staircases, each square representing 1 inch.

With the second FT job I worked a while back, I kept a workbook with each pay period - you guessed it - on a separate sheet with days, times in/out, and lines transcribed. We didn't have a "time clock" to punch, but we had to enter all of that into the time card at the end of the pay period. My time sheet book had formulas to calculate daily hours worked, lines per hour, downtime, and gross earnings. I have another that I made for my current job, when they wanted me to start documenting what I was doing each and every minute of my 8-hour shift every day (a story for another day).

I haven't gotten a notice yet on my 2008-2009 federal student loan interest rate and monthly payment amounts, but I have a spreadsheet to enter them into when I do, tracking the 10-year trend of this information, complete with the change in each from year to year since I went into repayment.

When I was working 2 full-time jobs and 1 part-time job, classically "employed" at 3 different companies, AND self-employed as an independent contractor for between 3 and 6 doctors across 4 different accounts, I made a schedule to plan my time, columns Monday through Sunday, time in 24 rows of 1-hour blocks, midnight to midnight. Each job was color coded, so I knew what I should be doing at any given time, when I could schedule a doctor's appointment and even when I could sleep.

The fuse box in our house had something not quite right going on with it. Although my office had been split across 2 breakers and the kitchen had been split across an additional 2 breakers (high usage areas, to prevent tripping the breaker), every time someone would turn on the microwave in the kitchen at the other end of the house, the whole kitchen and one side of my office would blow. We needed to map out the fuse box to see which breakers controlled each area of the house, since things got kind of buggered during the remodeling, so I made a chart.

There are no depths to which I will not stoop in order to create an Excel worksheet for something, but I can't organize my desk to save my life. Whenever I need an ink pen, I have to sift through a mountain of papers, which curiously are often hard copies documenting my passion for data organization, even though I have filing cabinets. Filing doesn't involve using Excel, so it doesn't interest me.

If There's a Way to Screw You

Some overpaid and otherwise completely useless dickwad in The Michigan Government is gonna find and exploit it, and probably thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Want a job? Too bad, move to another state (or the country to which your last job was outsourced). I've already ranted about the atrocious unemployment rate here in Michigan (highest in the nation and far above the national average since like 2001, I believe), and companies continue to flee. We hear "It's okay, we don't need industry/manufacturing. We have TOURISM." (Support 10 million people on tourism? In someone's overworked imagination that might work, if tourists are only non-residents willing to throw money at us, but there's a bit of a problem when the tourists are RESIDENTS [think trickle-down here]. Does that mean you have no business enjoying your own state since it won't generate external revenues, so FUCK OFF and stay home?) Dandy. Then the other day someone was telling me about new "tourism taxes" going to go into effect (surcharges on motel rooms, etc.). Now that we've driven off industry with the Mighty Upraised Middle Finger, it's time to turn it on tourism, too.

But I digress. Besides taxing us more here on things like gasoline and cigarettes, etc., than our surrounding states' residents pay, the bullshit has now extended to our CELL PHONE SERVICE. Forever, my Alltel bill was about $56 a month. This month it's over $58.

??????????

On the last page of the bill (in itty-bitty letters, of course): ATTENTION MICHIGAN RESIDENTS. A surcharge for E-911 (which I could have sworn I was already paying for, so now I gotta root through a stack of papers dating back to 2004 when I got the stupid thing) is being assessed on our monthly bill, varying by county. Of course, MY county happens to charge the second-highest rate: $2.12 per month.

I don't use my cell phone for 911. I use my REGULAR PHONE, on which I also pay for E-911, so now I get double-poked and for something I don't even use?

They raised our state income taxes, expanded the sales tax, and done other shit I'm not even gonna touch on cuz it would probably give me a brain aneurysm, so I have to ask, WHAT'S NEXT?

On the high side, I did happen to exploit that "tourism" factor a bit last week, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and in the Lower Peninsula's northern wonderlands. I have TONS of great pictures, as soon as I get off my ass and get them downloaded from my camera. . .