My intermittent computer crashes became worse this weekend. This morning my computer hung and even the clock froze - at 9:27. By 11:30 I was at the Apple Store showing off my frozen computer. (I left it frozen and worked from another computer this morning.) They did some sort of disk first aid program on it - nothing. They had me back up my recently changed files onto a dvd. They ran a hardware check on it and everything passed. Soooo then they declared my computer would have to stay there for indeterminate time and maybe an archive and install or logic board replacement or another HD replacement or lord knows whatall else. "I really don't want to do that. Waaaait a minute... shouldn't we check the log file of crashes?" I didn't remember where that was. (Applications -- Utilities -- Console). They did not really look at it, so I sat there and read through it and then remembered my clock frozen at 9:27. Yes! Bingo! Something nasty happened at 9:27 and it had something to do with /var/vm. "Well, we don't really know what that is, maybe some sort of software problem..." "Okay well it's either your virtual memory OR it could be something to do with my vmware installl, but I doubt it." Blank looks. "Well it must be virtual memory." "Well if it's not from an Official Apple Source...." Oh whatever!
I sat there at their "genius bar", googled and found many pages of people bitching about a sleepimage, and a memory swap, and the swapfile taking a snapshot of your computer pretty much constantly *just in case you lose power and need to reember the state of your system*. Or something. Yeah right, assholes, like I'm worrying about my battery falling out of my computer? OMG! Sounds nice in theory but in practice, this zillion-mb file was being swapped in and out of virtual memory and now that I've DELETED THAT ANNOYING FILE, my computer is nimble, no more weird hangs, delays, spinny thing, etc. I bet you anything that fixes the crashes, because for the last hour my computer has been nice and fast.
*Breathes*
Meanwhile, I felt pretty normal and good last night and even this morning, but as the day progressed I stopped being able to move my leg forwards very well. By a couple of hours ago it was impossible to hide my limp. And getting up out of my car just now, I had that thing (so horribly familiar from past years) of *not being able to get my leg out of the car* so I had to pick up my leg with my hands and haul it up and yank it over, then drop it. My hip is all weird, my leg is painful, not reliable, sort of wobbly -- not mechanically but whatever the nerve is doing, is not reliable at *all*. At Moomin's school (And I was late to pick him up as I completely forgot it was Monday and pickup was mine despite having reminded myself in the morning about it, god, the shame of going into the office there to get him!) At Moomin's school I realized I was going to have to park illegally and hobble in. I considered the cane, which luckily with great wisdom and paranoia I keep in the trunk. Rejected the cane but that might have been pointless and dumb because limping is bad enough. "OMG WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEG!!!" "Er. Nothing really, it's an old injury that flares up sometimes." (For this situation, need giant sign to hold up that says "It's probably not MS so would you mind stopping thinking that?") Now I'm on the cane. It hurts a bit less and makes me worry less about FALLING OVER. My leg is dragging like it's attachd to someone else's body.
Luckily I'm a philosopher. This helps with the giant wave of weeping freakout that I could be having at this moment but am managing to remain detached from. A cane is not so bad. It's just embarrassing.
Also I was really proud of not having needed it for years though maybe there were a couple of short intervals... but I didn't count them and so I say no devices since 2001.
Fucking leg... Or back... or sciatic nerve or disk or whatever it is...
It's probably swapping out its virtual memory. Or maybe it's on spring break.
Cane or not? Balance and reliability are important. It does help a bit with pain. It doens't help me move my leg forward, really, which is the hurtiest and hardest part. It is also hard, lying in bed right now, to bend my leg upward so that my knee is bent. *testing* It's hard if I'm lying on my side too.
I can totally handle it, but I'm just a little bit scared and don't want to be (seen as) disabled again.
This morning I walked 2 blocks to the school and didn't think anything of it and it was a lovely sunny day to have a pleasant 2 block stroll. But then I started hurting in the car, and parked near work, and had to go up this huge ramp that was the worst thing ever, and then had to walk more and then walk *more* to the store. You see why the whole thing freaks me out - aside from plain old pain, which is tedious but I can deal -- sudden readjusting of actual mobility really blows.
Better my legs than anything else, really, legs are pointless compared to, say, hands! Legs, fuck off! No, wait, I didn't mean it, I take it back, legs I'll be your best friend if you'll just behave!
*Not freaking out* *saving freakout for later* *working now*
*****
Okay, Rook just persuaded me to call the dr. in the morning. It seems pointless, and I don't want the millionth pointless inconclusive MRI of my life, but on the other hand I could get some good NSAIDS and physical therapy. I vaguely remember some exercises I used to do and the gist of them was to just keep moving around even though it hurts, but not in any weight-bearing, vertebrae-twisting ways. Rook also points out while I have had a million pointless MRIs, only a couple of them were on my low back. Huh. I am unwilling to deal with medical crap unless there is a clear goal or unless I'm desperate with pain.
Technorati Tags: anxieties, disability, pain, whining
Somebody needs to set up a chat site (just a front end for IRC, I guess) specifically for doing real-time reality checks on Apple Store "geniuses".
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | April 02, 2007 at 05:11 PM
Rook is right. You need to get an MRI of your lower back, specifically the side that all the pain is on. Ideally you should push the doc to get it set up now while the flare up is in progress rather than at some later date when the pain may have settled down.
Posted by: blaize | April 02, 2007 at 07:33 PM