I Am Nobody

My last post. Puppy. There was, in fact, a reason for said puppy.

As the title suggested, that's Riley. Our dog.

I've been holding off squeeing about it for a few weeks now, since I wasn't at all sure it would work out and I really didn't want to get my hopes up too much. But she's finally home, and she's fantastic, and this is probably the best thing that could've happened to me right now. So I shall proceed with the squeeing.

About two months ago one of my managers at work had puppies. Well. Rather, his dogs had puppies. They've had a beagle for some time, and a year and a half ago or so they got a male Jack Russel. They had been planning on getting Brewster (the male) fixed because he was making all over the house and it was getting annoying. Unfortunately, however, three days before his appointment my manager found the two dogs locked together right before he was about to go to work... and the rest is history.

So now I have a sleeping puppy on my lap as I write this.

As you can probably figure from the above background, Riley is a Jack Russel/Beagle mix and she will be eight weeks exactly as of tomorrow. We'd gone to see her previously, and today she got to come home with us. So far she's been a complete dream come true.

She's already taken beautifully to the car, her collar and leash (though she really dislikes both, and cries at me about it, she's still really good with them), her crate (which she actually prefers to be in if she's alone in the room), and the whole concept of going potty outside. Granted, the collar/leash thing was sprung on her rather nastily since our yard isn't fenced and so she needs it, but she's used to having a fenced-in yard to run around in. And the weather has sucked fuzzy monkey balls, so going outside to potty really sucks and while she likes sniffing around for a bit, she ends up shivering and wet and I have to dry her off when we get back inside. All in all, though, she's doing very well and I'm SO happy to have company in the house -- this place gets wicked lonely when nobody else is around, both Alex and I dislike it.

Though, for the time being "company" is a loosely used term... since most of the time she's zonked out. It's very cute, and it shall continue to be very cute while it lasts.

( Horribly grainy cellphone pictures, wewt. )


Wow. The more I look at those the more I realize how bad they are. Of course, getting her to hold still for any amount of time is tricky in and of itself, but I'll see if I can't do better from here on out.

Okay, so the title sounds more like a kinky sexual experience than the Clue reference I was going for.

Oh well.

So this was the most miserable two days of my life. The idea of getting back to normal is a bit... weird. Welcome, but weird. I sort of feel like, "Wow... all that, and I just pick up where I left off and clean the house and go to work and debate whether or not I feel like playing WoW or Dragon Age or messing with my video/writing projects?"

What happened? Well, my tests happened.

( Cut for longness and potential ew factor. )

Good freakin' times. I am so glad to be home.

Now I just wait a week or so for the results of everything to get back and we'll see what Doctor Q. has to say about it all. Then... hopefully... we'll get to see what Dr. Q's schedule looks like, and maybe surgery sometimes in the semi-near future.

*HAPPY SQUEAL*

Okay, so, I've been down for awhile and nothing's really been... doing it for me. WoW just hasn't been cutting it, I've read a few books and finished them and then got back into my slump. Bored, irritable, bleh. Alex recently got a game called Brutal Legend, and he's been all over it, and loving it, and I kinda got envious that he had something he enjoyed so much. I figured it's long past due for me to get a new game I really like, and while I'm anxiously awaiting Global Agenda (okay, anxiously is an understatement) and Diablo III, they're still pretty far off.

Enter Dragon Age.

I've been seeing bits and pieces of this game for awhile, it looked pretty interesting, and then, right before release earlier this week, I figured it looked decent enough and I might as well give it a shot for the helll of it, just to see how it was.

I was wrong. It wasn't decent.

IT IS SO FUCKING GOOD

Aaaaugh, the storyline is FANTASTIC. Yes, it's fairly generic in the whole "pick a class, adventure with your party, kill nasty things" aspect, but that's not why I love it. I've played many things of that sort before, but the world (while being a pretty classic mix fantasy based off historical aspects) feels very real and deep, and the characters I adore. Each member of your party has a personality, and a background, often a background you weren't expecting. You really get the feeling that your conversations with them, and the NPCs as well, affect the story. Fights can be avoided or started, plots can be changed depending on how you go about things, etc. It all makes for a game that reminds me very much of a book I just can't put down.

When I first got the game Alex was sort of "eh" about the whole thing -- yeah, another dark fantasy RPG, whoop-dee-doo. But I was taking a break to eat lunch one day, and he decided that maybe he'd give it a go. He picked a different race and class and starting story and I sat there and watched him, since like I said it's a story that unfolds and I was curious. In the end, he wound up enjoying it just as much as I did, and yoinks my computer while I'm at work to continue it... though I've been yelling at him to knock it off and get the game himself, so he doesn't have to use my computer and my game...

The other thing I really like is just how hardcorely blunt they are about stuff in this game. Avoiding spoilers as much as possible (though if you really don't want anything at all about the game, stop reading now), one of the starting stories you play through has a culture that's so based upon a caste system that it's not uncommon for the women of the casteless to whore themselves out to the nobles in the hope of getting pregnant and having a son so they might move up in life. Or the one guy who has no qualms about "entertaining" both men and women to achieve his goals. And we won't even get into the rape that's either out and out mentioned, or strongly hinted at. And that's just the sexual stuff. It's nice to have a game that doesn't gloss things over. Sex, murder, betrayal, you can actually do all of this stuff in the game and it makes it feel a lot deeper because of it. You can fight off some guys, the scene pauses, and you have the opportunity to talk. The choice is yours whether or not you kill them, leave them, demand money or favors for their life, etc. And then, once all that's set and done, half the time you get the option to go back and kill them anyway.

I love. This game. So much.

And I so want the soundtrack. Lord of the Rings? Yes. Do I care? No. It's so pretty!

So. Um. Yes. If you like RPGs, I'd strongly recommend Dragon Age. Yes, it's hyped. But it really is good.

Another appointment come and gone, and it finally feels like we're getting someplace now.

I wasn't quite sure how to feel about this particular visit after the grand fibro diagnosis. At this point I'm not sure what symptoms are what, and my head is so far gone that I can barely verbalize answers to simple questions, such as, "Who do you live with?" (It took me a moment, before I sheepishly replied, "Um... myself?" When my mom gave me a look like she thought I was acting stupid, I quickly tagged on that I live with my boyfriend and a roommate... but honest to god, I had no idea what was being asked of me, or how to reply.) For all I knew, the Cushing's concern could be null and void in their minds unless things start getting horrific again, like I start blowing up like a balloon, with massive purple stretch marks and a hump, and maybe excess body hair and pimples this time for good measure. Maybe it could all be explained away by the fibro thing... who knew?

Fortunately, this was not to be the case. Dr. Q's assistant/helper/whatever it's called doctor person, who was actually named Raven (which I think is amazingly badass), seemed to have no doubt that this was a recurrence of Cushing's. Much like Dr. Wand's assistant doctor person. Actually, the only person who seemed to question this was Dr. Wand. And maybe that other dude before we went to JH, but eh. So anyway, they seemed confident and went on to talk about what we're going to do next.

Eventually Dr. Q (his name is Que-something-spanish, but everybody there calls him Dr. Q) came in and he was very friendly and very nice and asked me a bit about myself, my family, my goals, and that sort of thing. He then proceeded to explain that we've really got two options on the matter, and that they're surgery or radiation. Surgery wasn't 100% that I'd get this all taken care of, but in his opinion I'm too young for radiation since it would be a 100% chance of killing my pituitary entirely, putting me on medication for the rest of my life. Not that I'm not going to be doing that anyway, at this point... but I see where he's coming from. So it would seem he'd prefer to stay away form radiation for the time being.

However, in the mean time I get to do... you guessed it! More tests. Yaaaaaaaay.

On the bright side, at least these won't be bloodwork and shit. The first is a fun and exciting high-resolution MRI, the type that they can't actually do around here because we just don't have the equipment. The second test is going to be where they stick some sort of needle thingie into my groin and send a little camera up into my brain. I get the concept, but it nonetheless seems pretty roundabout to go through my groin to get to my bring... they're the experts though, I guess, so I'll leave it to them.

So yes, I guess it'll be a few more weeks 'till we get an actual gameplan in order, but for now we're narrowing in on it, which is good.

And I think I'm coming to accept the fact that, more than likely, a lot of this stuff I'm dealing with won't be over quickly or easily. Some of it is just going to be lifelong, no two ways about it, and others, even if there's a chance of getting over it, will always have the possibility of coming back. I think coming to terms with this is good. I won't have overly high expectations only to be disappointed, but I'll be able to deal with it on a day to day basis, since it's just a normal part of life.

Maybe I've been doing too much waiting for things to get "normal." Maybe this is normal, and I need to just be glad that things aren't worse. Sorta sucks, but...

Turns out I was wrong.

I'd figured seeing a rheumatologist would be a oomplete waste of time and money. But, as is the way of things, when you don't get your hopes up the good stuff happens. While the Cushing's thing has yet to be completely determined and settled upon (Monday, if all goes, well, when I see the neurologist) I actually have one diagnosis to go on now.

Apparently I have Fibromyalgia. Wewt.

Odd as it might seem, I'm relieved. At least it gives a name and face to the bizarre pain I've been having, and the doctors who talked to me were fantastic. While this is just another annoyance to pile onto the heap of things wrong with me, at least this one is very fixable. And the best part is the fact that I don't have to wait around for stupid doctors to get me medications and crap -- I can fix this problem on my own, with some work. So finally, something I can take charge of and see results from, as opposed to sitting around on my ass waiting for people to cure me.

It's about fucking time I get some good news.

So, I haven't updated in forever. But honestly, not a lot has changed.

Went to Johns Hopkins and it went pretty much exactly as I suspected. Inconclusive, let's do more tests, we'll see you in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I'm trying to work enough to keep my insurance active, swapping between various highly addictive painkillers, drinking, and debating whether or not I have enough money to nab s'more weed for the really bad times. I spent yesterday in tears at work, and I'm really excited about tomorrow.

Life is beautiful.


On the WoW front, I now have four level 80s -- along with my hunter, my warrior, and my druid, my paladin has joined the ranks of my main alts. Right now she's prot/ret, though my intentions are to take her prot/holy once I have the gear to do so. But from what I've seen holy is immensely gear-dependent, so I'm definitely going to wait until I've got a good set before I attempt it again. In the mean time I'm working on gearing prot, which is a pain in the arse, and oddly, despite the competition with warriors and DKs, ret is gearing up really fast. I actually have better gear on my ret set than tank set at this point. I still can't help but be amused that, promptly after leveling and gearing my warrior while whining about gear competition from DKs/pallies, I promptly go and work on another plate class. But eh. That's me for you. Alex laughs at me to no end because I've said I would never ever tank, and here I'm loving it to death and have two (three, if you count the stint on my druid) tank classes.

I've also been playing (*GASP!!*) Alliance, thanks to the fact that my pally is a dwarf. And I love her to freaking death. I lovelovelove dwarves, and I wish so much that they were Horde. I've always disliked Alliance, but I sort of felt that it was just my bias for playing Horde so long. Unfortunately, after playing Alliance as much as I have, I've come to the conclusions that... I really, really, really hate Alliance. A lot. I've seen more idiot players than I've ever seen Hordeside, and the maturity level, overall, is awful. My entire WoW career I've played a female orc, and while I ever-so-occasionally get a comment about, "Heh, femorc," I've never had too much trouble with her. Alliance-side? I consistently get remarks about how ugly my femdwarf is (and she's really not..,). In fact, I even had someone from MY OWN FACTION try to kill me. I was harmlessly questing, grinding large groups of mobs at time, and a person runs up to me and yells, "Ew! Gross! Kill it!" while bouncing around me like an idiot. Then he proceeds to run around pulling another half-dozen mobs, drops them into my Consecrate, and dies.

I'm a pally, so of course I managed to survive it, but the sheer shock of someone from my own faction trying to kill me because he thought I was ugly almost made me forget what I was doing and die.

So I'm torn. A friend has offered to faction change his mage and myself, but the idea of making my immensely awesome dwarf into a blood elf is somewhat sickening. I may end up doing it anyway, depending on if he actually wants to go Horde, but I seriously love my dwarf. I just really wish she wasn't Alliance. Sigh. Choices, choices.

Two weeks until I get seen at Johns Hopkins -- much longer than we'd hoped, but at least it's going to happen. Apparently the head honcho guy there will be doing the first evaluation, which pleases my mom a lot. Hopefully we can get stuff sorted out and get on our way to actually... y'know, getting me better. There's so much I'd like to do, and the longer this goes on the harder things are getting.

I started work back up on Saturday, but apparently someone didn't get the memo about me wanting to do only half-days. So a nine-hour day, and I still feel shitty from it. But I have this week off, and I'll go back sometime next week, hopefully with the couple of half days a week like I'd asked for. I need to at least work enough to cover the money for insurance, since it comes out of my paycheck... but I've not been getting paychecks, so this whole damned thing is really complicated. The idea of working partially was so I'd have enough to cover rent, but I don't know if I'll be able to work enough to cover both rent and insurance and actually keep myself up in working order. But I guess I haven't got much of a choice at this rate, so we'll see how things go. Right now I feel too horrible to think about it, so I'll just stop.

( Cut for WoW stuff, and being way too long. )

So here's a summary of what's been going on.

First round of tests: bloodwork, 24-hour urine, and saliva test.
Results: Half the tests came back positive, the other half negative.
Conclusion: Something was definitely wrong. Possibly caught early enough to not show up on some of the "weaker" teats? Results weren't as drastic as last time, but those were the affects of years and years of this, while currently we're only looking at about two years, give or take.

MRI: Done with contrast, of the pituitary.
Results: Nothing.
Conclusion: No pituitary tumor, possibly adrenal Cushing's? Or the tumor was too small to find, a very real possibility. Back to the tests.

Second round of tetss: bloodwork -- Cortisol suppression.
Results: Did not suppress.
Conclusion: Pituitary. Extremely high probability of the tumor simply being too small to find on the MRI, not at all uncommon. Moving right along.


Course of action taken so far:

Tests were done through first the family doctor, Dr. Conley, who was in communication with a local endocrinologist. Once the results of everything up to the MRI were in, the endocrinologist himself, Dr. Caskey, was seen. Unfortunately... it didn't go very well. He was an older guy, with a bit of Cushing's experience, but very oldshcool. Some of the tests he ordered done were very outdated and potentially dangerous, as we later found out, and one he had been planning to get done was apparently so outdated that, in the words of another doctor, it "should be abandoned."

Current plans are to go, instead of locally, to Johns Hopkins in Maryland. My records have already been sent in, and reviewed, and now we're waiting on a date. Maybe next week?

It strikes me as immensely unfair that I have spent an entire week heavily drugged, and have gotten very little relief from the pain. I have gone through about 1/3 a bottle of Vicodin, and an entire bottle of Codeine in exactly seven days time. That is a LOT of very powerful painkiller we're talking about, and right now I'm sitting here having great difficulty typing because it hurts so bad. And I have been taking my Codeine religiously all morning.

Most people would be flying high with this amount of narcotics in their possession. Me? I want to scream, because it feels like someone has replaced my pills with jellybeans. Sounds great and all, but it's not doing anything for the, y'know, mind-numbing amounts of pain I'm in. Why am I typing if I hurt so bad, you might ask? Because I have no damned choice. It's going to fucking hurt if I sit and stare at a wall or if I sit here and write a bitchfest, and at least bitching makes me feel mildly better.

So far the only time I actually really felt better this week was while high, and I'd honestly like to be able to function a little better than conversations consisting of, "Y'know what I'm sayin'?" "Yeeeah." "Y'know what I'm sayin'?" "Yeeeah." "Y'know what I'm sayin'?" "...Totally."

I'm so frustrated. The cortisol blood test came back normal, the ATCH blood test came back elevated, and the 24-hour urine cortisol came back elevated, but not above 300 apparently, so it's not definitive. Next up is the MRI, but only after we figure out what's up with my insurance. Which means I need to call in to work, find out if/when my insurance kicks in, then call the insurance company, then call my mom, then get the MRI set up... I'm too fucking tired to do any of this. I don't want to. I want to just sit here and complain about how much it hurts and how tired I am, and how much I wish I hand the energy to just jump off a goddamned bridge or something and make it all stop. I seriously don't want to deal with this any more.

I also have no money, but I have two checks I need to get cashed, but I don't feel like doing that. I don't want to go anyplace. It doesn't help that it's really humid out. It's so hot. That makes me sleepier, and I'm already nodding off, despite having tried to take a nap earlier. This is my second day off, and I still feel like shit. I don't think even these three days will be enough to help me recover. In fact, previously I'd been able to take the painkiller and I was fine, so long as I wasn't at work. Now I've taken one Vicodin and four Codeine so far today and I hurt so bad I want to bite something's head off.

Some people are saying that my body's getting used to the painkiller. I half wonder if that's true, or if I'm just working myself into levels of pain beyond the stuff I'm taking. It could be either way, but I know the painkiller is working, at least. I got my period and I didn't notice the cramps at all. It just happened, and I was like, "Oh, right. It IS that time of month, isn't it?" Usually I know it's coming. Bad. This time? Nothing. So I guess the meds are taking out some of my pain... just not all of it.

I feel horrible whining like this. It's my journal, I can whine if I want, but I feel bad wanting to. There are so many other people out there dealing with the same stuff, if not worse, and here I am having a little bitchfest. It doesn't help the fact that my tests are coming back with such stupid results, I feel like that means there's obviously nothing wrong with me and I shouldn't be feeling like this. But at the same time, if this was in my head I would stop. I feel like if I push myself past it I'll be batter, but it keeps not working and I keep feeling worse. It's all such a mindfuck.


Anyway, my mom just called and I feel better. At least mentally. She's helping me take care of things, which is a lot off my shoulders. I really do not know how I'd deal with all this without her. I hate not being able to function, especially when it's things I need to do. I can push myself to an extent, but after awhile...

But looks like things are moving now, at least a little. We're gonna see if the insurance will kick in, but if not they want to do the MRI ASAP, tomorrow if possible. I'm not really complaining. At this point I don't care, I just want them to fix it so I can stop feeling like this.

So, the annoying thing about Vicodin, at least for me, is the fact that it doesn't actually make me feel drugged up, or significantly better, or whatever. I feel... normal. It's like someone turned back the clock a few weeks and I'm at the same level of pain as I was then. It's not pleasant, but bearable. I find myself thinking, "Gee, I'm sore and achy and have a headache. Maybe I should take something-- oh right, I'm on something already." As opposed to being nauseous and dizzy and bawling my eyes out.

I guess this is how it's supposed to work and all, it's not supposed to make me feel good or anything like that. It's just supposed to make the pain bearable so I can make it through a workday without collapsing or passing out or some other fun thing like that. But the problem is the way it works. If I felt remotely like it was actually doing something significant, if I felt vaguely drugged, or whatever, I'd remember to keep taking the bloody stuff. As it stands, it doesn't feel like I've taken anything, just that I'm having a "good day" or a "good period" and I don't need to be taking stuff at the moment. The truth of the matter is, The Pain is still lurking in its dark corner, waiting for me to think this and take nothing. Once that shit gets out of my system it pounces and knocks me to the ground, wrecking havoc (and not my wolf, Havoc).

Here I am again, in agony, waiting for it to kick in once more. I am such a retard.


In other news, though, we're still very much in the test phase. I've done four tests in five days; two blood tests, a 24-hour urine test, and a saliva test. What's really fun is when your doctor has very little knowledge of what he's dealing with and has to keep getting in contact with specialists from all over the farking place. The more time passes the more that is revealed, and the worse everything sounds. I mean, in the end the result will most likely be the same -- I'll be on some sort of hormone replacement, and osteoporosis medication for the rest of my life. Other side effects may or may not occur. It could be worse; I'm not exactly pleased at the thought of being on meds the rest of my life, but there could be worse best-case scenario I guess. We'll carefully avoid the worst-case scenarios.

The first time around a pituitary tumor isn't a huge deal, and has about a 80-90% change of success. The second time around that drops to 50%, and is directly related to the skill of the surgeon, apparently. For this reason my mom wants to send me to the University of Virginia this time, because they've apparently got a little team especially dedicated to this stuff. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're covered under my insurance and it'd cost an arm and a leg to do that so we might end up going to Maryland instead. However, it was mentioned that since recurrences are so rare (I thought they were common -- apparently I was very wrong) and my case is especially unusual given my age (Cushing's usually occurs in people between 35-50 or so) it might be of interest to these guys and I might get in on a study. If that's the case I might be able to get some of this paid for, or at least get help with it. There's actually another place in Maryland that often does studies, so we might look into that as well.

One way or another, this is gonna be really expensive and, I'm afraid, really drawn-out. This time around it's not going to be as simple as a surgery and back out again. They'll end up having to do surgery, and then at least one other treatement. We've got a few options, and I'm not excited about the potential side-effects of any of them, especially considering their chances of complete success are very limited. If there was a chance of escaping all this unscathed I'd be a bit more gung-ho about it all, but from the looks of it I'm really not. It's already affected enough of my body in ways that can't be repaired, so I get to live with that part anyway. Now it's just a matter of finding out what I get to add on top of that, depending on how smoothly this all goes.

I guess I'd just been holding out hope that, at some point, I'd finally get everything sorted out and be able to exist like a normal person without the meds, without the constant exhaustion, pain, etc. It feels like at this rate I'm always going to be at a slight disadvantage from most people, and that's sort of depressing. Life itself is rough enough, without having extra to carry around constantly. It's like jogging five miles; that's rough enough for most people, without adding a vest that weighs 20lbs on top of it. I don't want the extra.

Whine, whine, whine. I should stop whining. But it's a lot to think about.

When I get home from work it's between 10pm and 11pm. At this point, no matter how shit-tastic I feel, I usually stay up for a few hours because... well, that's my freetime. When else am I going to get the chance to do what I want to do? Certainly not in the mornings, trying to get stuff done before I head off to work.

So waking up so I can get blood drawn at EXACTLY 8am does not make me a happy campter.

Especially when I need to drive twenty minutes there, and twenty minutes back.

And I need to go get gas, because I managed to forget that. Damnit.

Tests, tests, tests. I'm tired of them.

Stop testing. Fix it. Give me my bloody meds and let me replace normal body functions in peace.

The good: I'm FINALLY posting from my new uber beastly computer, Beef.

The bad: My health is declining at about twice the speed it did last time. In the past two months it's become noticeable, in the past month it's become worrisome, and in the past week it's become debilitating. I feel like my body is trying to tear itself apart. It's scary as fuck.

The ugly: Today I'm staying home from work so I can get this bloody 24-hour urine thing done. At this point it's pretty much been confirmed that Cushing's can and very likely will come back if even a few cells are left behind after surgery, and the way I've been feeling lately strongly suggests this was the case. But on the bright side, at least this time around I don't need to prove the diagnosis eight times over, and we know how to take care of things. From what the doctor says I might not even need an MRI this time, the blood work and the 24-hour should be more than enough to settle it all and get the ball rolling. This is good. The sooner we can get it done, the sooner I can go back to trying to be a normal human being.

As normal a human being as I'm capable of being, random diseases aside.



I just put Ravage and Sideswipe in their places on my desk, and noticed that they match Beef's color scheme. I sorta have this nifty silver/black/blue theme going on here. How very badass.

So! A lovely mix of good and bad happened today.

I was bored this morning, so I hooked up the stuff that I'd gotten with my computer (since I only had to send the tower, not the mouse, keyboard, etc. and the monitor is already mine) to Josh's old silver tower. The thing had been corrupted to all hell thanks to a multitude issues brought on by the thing being used for unmentionable purposes by a less than considerate friend. He was convinced it needed a new harddrive, but I was pretty sure it just needed a good reformatting. The difficulty was... it was somehow password protected, and he couldn't get through to do it.

After some research and tampering, I managed to get the thing wiped and his precious XP Professional re-installed, so now I'm waiting for everything to update and install and all the goodness. So yes, I fixed the unfixable computer and I'm pleased with myself.

Around 1pm I went in for a doctor visit, and my fears were pretty much confirmed; he agrees, it looks like I'm gonna be one of those cases of Cushing's where it reoccurs a few years after the surgery. It's been almost exactly three years. In fact, on Saturday it will be exactly three years. July 18, 2006.

Tests begin tomorrow, with basic blood work and a 24-hour urine sample when I can fit it in (there's no way in hell I can do it a day I'm working...). I need to get insurance sorted out again, since I just got it from this current job, and I'm desperately hoping I won't have to fight with the company to pay for this pre-existing condition. If not, we should be able to get this sorted out pretty quickly, I hope. If so... well, I'd rather not think about it. I'm seriously not looking forward to this again, and it's gotten bad fast, just in the last two months or so. I don't want to see what's going to happen down the road if we can't get this taken care of ASAP.

Dr. Conley did suggest doing some thyroid tests as well, which I suppose makes sense, but I'm really thinking that's not going to be the case. I don't know how believable it is, but I sort of feel like it's not that. This is all far too familiar, it's almost like coming home... in a really miserable, "oh dear god, will I ever function like a normal human being?!" sort of way.

On the bright side, he didn't seem particularly concerned about my constant taking of painkiller to keep The Pain (I should seriously start to refer to it as that, at this point... it's like it's its own entity, something that lurks in the shadows, waiting to pounce and take me down) at bay. He even suggested something else, that might work better, at my mentioning that what I was taking just doesn't cut it sometimes but I wanted something that wouldn't knock me out so I could work. So I'll pick some of that up and start in on my new painkiller regiment tomorrow. Hopefully it'll help.

Anyway, once I got home I chilled briefly, took Alex to work, and got back to Josh's computer to install WoW and whatnot. Then I remembered that I'd wanted to call and get an update on my computer, and see how far through the repair queue it was. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. The way it had been explained to me, it just got there yesterday and they'd entered it into the system so they could put it into the queue for repair, then they'd get to it when its turn was up. I figured I'd call today, see how long the queue was, and request that they maybe bump up the priority since it was technically a brand new machine and they sorta owed me. Wasn't I surprised to find out that they'd just gotten a report an hour or so before I called, and that they'd located the problem, fixed it, and it was ready to ship out either tonight or tomorrow morning. (EDIT: It's shipped, scheduled to arrive on Thursday!!)

WEWT!!!

I have been so impressed with these guys. Alex's computer was all set and out a week before it was scheduled to be and has been working beyond beautifully. Mine has had some setbacks, but their customer service has been so excellent, and they've pretty much done everything I could've asked for given the circumstances. Yes, I have horrific luck. But their tech support was thorough over the phone before I sent it back, they paid for the shipping there (as they should), every person I've spoken to in the customer service has been so friendly and helpful (and I've called a retarded number of times... I can't help it, I'm antsy), they upgraded the shipping back to me without a moment's hesitation (which again, makes a ton of sense to me but I know so many places would've put up a stink about it), and they didn't dally with getting this thing fixed and on its way back.

But yes. In one day we have very possible Cushing's return (did it ever really leave?) and happy computer update. As long as we can balance out the bad with the good like this, I will be just fine.

That's right, Kate. Think positive. Positive is good. (No shit, Sherlock.)

I think that subject line needs to be used at least yearly. I'm pretty sure I haven't used it yet this year.

Anyway.

I went to bed at 11pm for lack of anything to do. I'm saving my movie and my half a slice of chocolate cake for tomorrow, in case my deal with Renee doesn't go down. Precaution FTW.

So I go to bed. Kinda. With the light on, expecting Alex to follow shortly, since he's been tires and complaining about it all day. Instead I end up sleeping for four hours before he gets around to bed, and then wake up as he finally decides to do so. Now I feel like crap because I was trying to sleep with the light on (I get sick from that half-awake stage I can't get past when the room's big light is on) and it's so not fair.

I want my damned computer back. Goddmit.

Whine, whine.

In other news, I've been having Cushing's symptoms again. I've been having to restrain myself from eating voraciously, still gaining nonetheless and this is after months and months of steady loss, I'm getting headaches, my joints (wrists, shoulders, hips) have been aching constantly, to the point of me taking so much painkiller to get through a workday that I'm getting nervous about my stomach/liver, and of course the really cranky moodswings/depression?. A lot of these things I've been passing off as individual things -- Carpal Tunnel due to too much computer time, shoulder and back pain due to work, appetite and weight gain due to stress, headaches because I need new glasses, depression/moodiness because I haven't had a computer in so long and everything keeps going wrong.

However. All these things together is not good. I'm at the point new where reoccurance is extremely likely, so I need to be on guard. I've been neglecting getting regular tests, which is a huge no-no. Instead of keeping up on this I've shoved it into a corner and pretended it didn't happen. This may well come back to bite me in the ass.

I go in for tests this week, at last.

Work is a nightmare. I'm constantly exhausted and in pain, and I have no idea what to do about it. Getting through each week is a struggle, which makes life a huge pain in the ass since all I do is work and sleep for lack of my single source of entertaintment. I'm so sick of it. If only there was something I could do to just be able to work like a normal freaking human being, where work was annoying and boring, but not and actual struggle to get through, I'd be happy. I don't mind a rough job where I'm tired afterwards, but you'd expect to get more used to it after time, not for it to get steadily worse. It's almost like my body can't recover from week to week.

C'mon, body. It's not like I'm working that hard, seriously now.

I am so. Sick. Of. All this.
In any case, work is a nightmare. I'm contnstantly hurting and regular painkiller just isn't cutting it. If this keeps up I don't know how I'm going to make it from week to week.

Guess what! I'm posting from my phone again.

So, I got my computer early Thursday morning, after making a half-hour trip to Lewisberry so I could pick the thing up before work, since it needed signed for and I wouldn't be around otherwise. Get it home, set it up, turn it on. Alex warns me to watch my leg, it's kinda close to the power button. I ignore him -- I'm not stupid, I see the power button. The irritating, "enter your name, name your computer, welcome to Vista, the most annoying OS on the face of the earth!" proceeds to direct me through the first moments of ownership. I set up teh intarwebz, download Firefox, AGV, ect. Begin installing WoW-- the monitor goes blank, "no input." WTF. Oh. Leg. Power button. Right. I move my leg very far from the power button and begin again. Black screen. No input. LOLZWUT. Turn on again. No input. And again. And again.

By this point I'm thinking... something's wrong. Computers are supposed to, y'know, stay ON when you're not touching the power button, or selecting Shut Down from the menu, and it's plugged in properly and you're not blue-screen-o-deathing.

Long story short, I hopped right on to customer support and we proceeded to run many diagnostics and other lovely things on the system. I must say that I'm impressed with the ability to go into my computer via a website, even if it's a bit unnerving to watch my mouse hopping around the screen when I'm not doing anything. Computer security is good, folks. And so is ripping apart a system with more fans and modem components than I've ever seen in one place at the same time. The support/tech guy was very thorough with helping me check everything so I wouldn't have to send it back, which gave me a fun opportunity to poke about in a computer that was expertly put together. This is definitely some stuff I'm caching away for the day I get arounnd to building my own computer (why didn't I do it this time, you ask? Because the price of the parts, plus a good case, plus accesories, would've actually run me more expensive than this thing cost -- yes, I researched, and the cost of a really good case+power supply would have screwed the otherwise good price, and since I have no AC I just cannot afford to skimp on cooling.).

In the end, however, despite the best efforts made to avoid it, I needed to send my new rig back. It would appear some parts got fried/broken in transit, but since they take responsibility for that they'll replace stuff for me, as well they should. Of course, I'm still extremely pissed that I STILL have no computer, but it will get back to the place on Monday (technically it would've been there yesterday, but no bloody weekend delivery) and if all goes well I'll have it by next Monday.

Of course, this is assuming all goes well. And considering my luck with computers...

So, My New Hotness AKA The Beastly Machine Of Beastliness AKA my new computer, finally shipped yesterday. So if all goes well I'll be back in action by Thursday or Friday. Keeping myself occupied for the past... month, I think? has been a bitch and a half. Movies, books, and my iPhone have kept me sane, but I don't have the money to keep renting movies and buying books, no matter how relatively inexpensive this stuff is. It adds up, and at the rate I go through stuff it adds up fast.

It will be fantastic to be able to run WoW at top settings, play all the new games I wanna try out, and whatnot. It'll be good to just get back to the internet without having to use my iPhone. Just another few days...

In the mean time Alex I nerded out last night after work. I had gotten my brother Bumblebee and Barricade for his birthday, buy while I was there I found a Ravage figure too... which of course, I had to have. He was the only one there, and on sale, and I LOVED Ravage. He was, like, the only reason I didn't just fall asleep at the sheer... blah of the movie. I was sadder seeing him get pulled apart than I was about any of the supposedly "tragic" parts of the movie. But anyway, I won't go into a rant on why I thought the second Transformers movie had no heart. I just loved Ravage, 'nuff said. So I got the action figure while shopping for a birthday present. *cough*

Well, after playing with my brother's new toys, helping him learn how transform them and all that, Alex decided he wanted one too. So last night after work we went to the 24-hour Wal-Mart and looked around. Being the absolute loser I am, I picked up Sideswipe, because despite the fact that he killed a mailman (poor Sideways...) he did so in an incredibly badass way which almost made up for the fact that he was only in the movie for about ten seconds. At least his screentime was awesome, what little there was, and the model is teh hawtness. And the 2009 Corvette Stingray makes me wet. Yes, I'm a little bit of a car whore. Suck it, Tanya! Ahem. But anyway, I got Sideswipe, and Alex got Starscream, who he loves (moreso the non-bitch Starscream from the first movie). Then we went home and spent the rest of the night playing with our toys.

Yeah, you heard right. We very literally sat around transforming our Transformers (these new ones are actually surprisingly complex and they look good) and then having fights and making sour effects and all that jazz. We might as well have been ten. It was fantastic. When we finally got around to going to bed we posed them in awesome poses and put them next to the bed. And of course, we've been playing most of the morning between serious things. I wish I could get away with bringing toys to work...

But yes. Computers and Transformers and it might as well be Christmas in July. It's the little things in life, amirite?

I haven't updated in awhile. My computer is very dead and posting from my phone is just tedius since I talk so much. But I'm going to do it anyway, so apologies in advance for weird spellings/words.

I'm going nuts without any form of freetime thingie to do, since half the stuff I enjoy doing involves a computer. I can't even watch movies (my other thing I like doing not computer-related) becuase the DVD player is dying and takes ten minutes to read a disk (even a brand new one) and then halfway through it takes a shit and gets all skippy. Annoying as hell.

As if the lack of computer wasn't bad enough, one bad thing after another keeps happening. We're currently rolling with a single car at the moment, mine. About a week ago the brakes shit out (we're talking roters and the whole farking shebang -- I won't even get into how far back that set me) so I got that squared away and finally got the car back. About two days later I'm on my way to work when the damned thing starts to shake. Hard. Being the idiot I am, I didn't think about the fact that it could possibly be a flat tire until someone pointed it out to me. Sure enough, a flat. But not just any flat. Oh no, it couldn't possibly be that simple.

Turns out whatever jackass put the tires on (it's a used car and I haven't changed the tires, so god only knows how it happened) managed to screw them in way too tight so I stripped two crowbar-screw thingies trying to get them off to change to the spare. The guy at the tire place wanted to charge $120 just to come out and put on the damned spare, which resulted in in resounding "fuck no" and the decision to attempt driving to a close place. We managed to get the car around the corner to the place (shredding the tire right off the wheel and leaving a really nifty rubber trail down the road) where the nicest grumpy old man helped us out. He warned that the tires were magnesium, so if we tried to cut the bolts off the tire itself probably wouldn't survive, but he worked really hard in the awful heat (it was nearly a hundred degrees out that day, high ninties) and got the damned things off. We put the spare on and managed to get the car to the tire place and all was well. Minus, y'know, the fact that I was out still more money.

I'm ridiculously tired of living on barely a hundred dollars a week. I'd like to save some money, but with all the shit that keeps happening that just doesn't fly. I don't know what I'd do if my mom didn't keep bailing me out, because at this point I wouldn't be able to keep this up. Our incomes combined cover the basic costs of living, but not this random crazy expenses that keep popping out of nowhere. No sooner do I have a couple hundrd dollars saved up, it's flying out the window for my car, medicine, fixing broken this or that... ugh.

Hopefully my car is fixed good now and will stop breaking. And hopefully two weeks will fly past so I can come back. And hopefully I can scrounge up a shitty monitor for my new baller (<3 Zaccy!) computer. I like that term. Baller. It works for computers.

Anyway, that's the update for now. More sometime late next week or early week after. Until the. I'm gonna try to catch up on peoples' LJs.

You lot know how to say hi, I CAN check email and stuff y'know. ;p

Anybody know how to change the language of an OS? XP Professional is now installed... in French.

I call upon the powers of LJ and the nerds that dwell within...

So, he's the story in a nutshell. Alex has been having issues with his computer running slow as hell, so he did a couple of virus scans. Sure enough -- stuff. So he cleaned it up and went on his merry way. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to get entirely clean, and now we're dealing with all sorts of badness. active desktop is gone, popups (broken ones, no less) keep bombarding him, virus/adware scans are showing up assloads of crap, and -- here's the icing on the cake -- his WoW account has been hacked.

Good times.

While we attempt to get Blizzard off their collective asses to fix the account problem, we're trying to fix his computer so we don't just end up with MOAR HAX when he gets his account back. I know I've had this particular thing, or at least a variation of it, since I remember this stuff (the loss of active desktop, the broken popups, etc.) happening to one of my old computers, but I can't for the life of me remember how I fixed it. At this point I honestly think everything's too far gone to bother trying to save, especially since it wasn't his computer in the first place and it's full of other peoples' junk as well.

Time to reformat! (Part of me thinks this was my solution last time, too.)

Here's the deal, though. Every time I've reformatted I've known my own computer inside and out, so the process was pretty quick and painless considering what it was. It was irritating as hell, but at least I knew what I was doing. This time around I'm dealing with a computer I don't know, didn't build, blah blah blah. It's a custom rig too, so it's not like I've just got a CD I can pop in and roll with.

So, can anybody give me a refresher on how exactly I should go about this? I looked up the various hardware and we can nab the drivers on my computer and burn a CD with them all. Anybody have a checklist on what to make sure I've got, though?

If anybody can offer tips and tricks on how to make this a little less obnoxious/not badness, I'd be appreciative. I think I've got it down, but I really don't wanna risk it, so if those more knowledgeable than me could point me in the right direction I'd love ya.

Thanks in advance!