Sweet Catastrophe

Checking out the sale items on Buy.com’s Weekly Deals was probably not the smartest thing for me to do when I got home today, but of course I’m a glutton for punishment and couldn’t resist.

Of course this week they have something that would normally be in my immediate price range (if it weren’t for assholes in the medical field) and I seriously want it.

Geeks and…other geeks: I present to you the Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse. Are you drooling with me yet? No? Then check the link and watch the little intro video! This thing is awesome! It’s what every mouse will now strive to be, and I’m not even kidding! The new scroll wheel works in either the normal short click way that we’re all used to, or you can give it a spin and it’ll spin freely to scroll through long documents!

There’s more though! The button underneath the scroll wheel is for searching!! Highlight a word or phrase and then click the button to search using your favorite engine!!

My favorite part is that it comes with a charging station for its rechargeable lithium ion battery!! *head explodes*

I love having a wireless setup for my desktop. When I got my new desktop, I stuck with the default keyboard and mouse that came with it because I got tired of changing the batteries in my mouse. Problem solved!

As you can see, my mouse is currently trapped. The cord follows behind those CDs, behind my desk to the back of my tower which sits about floor level. We fight. Often.

I miss my old, cordless friends. I miss the freedom of having intermittent chats on the comp while I’m actually sitting on the couch playing a video game–yeah, it really gets that dorky around here!

You wouldn’t believe just how badly I want this thing. I must’ve read over the specs five times now! Of course it’s Logitech which I thoroughly trust and enjoy when it comes to my accessories and it has a 3-year warranty! It’s $68.33 with a $30 rebate making it only $38.33!!! With free shipping, of course! I could’ve bought it if I hadn’t tried to be so responsible by going to the stupid doctor!

Haha how crazy is it that I feel my money would’ve been better spent on a frickin’ amazing mouse as opposed to my health?

I hope this deal is still around when I get paid this week. It may be time for a not-so-responsible impulse buy…

EDIT: You’re not gonna believe this! I picked Ryan up tonight and he told me he got his computer fixed–the cooling unit was just loose. He also got a new keyboard and mouse…to which of course I brought up finding a mouse that I’m obsessed with getting now……yeah you see where this is going. He got the Logitech MX Revolution!!! I’m really jealous right now. I think before it’s all over with, he’s gonna end up giving me the money to buy this one—they paid just over $100 for his so I definitely found the better deal!

EDIT 6/4: I bought it today! It’s on its way!!!

Well, Joolie and Brandell offered to help. I’m not sure if they offered before or after knowing how much money I would need–I’m gonna have to talk to Ryan about that, but if that’s all straight, I’m still not going for a CT Scan.

Before I get lectured, I’m well aware of what it could mean for my health, but I’ve got to do it the way I’m comfortable doing it. I’ll wait it out and if things get worse I’ll go to the emergency room and hopefully have it all straight once and for all.

I’m not comfortable taking someone’s money for a test that may still give no helpful results. I know it’s not the best idea to wait until something has to be done, but that’s what makes the most sense to me. If I just wait it out, I may see that it’s really nothing at all, and if it’s something big, at least by the time I feel like I need to go to the emergency room, they problem will be to the point of being obvious. If they want to scan me then, fine. But I’m really just not taking someone’s money without the assurance that it’s gonna do any good–especially considering what a negative experience it was visiting that doctor’s office. How am I supposed to feel confident that the CT Scan is necessary when this man completely ignored the things I mentioned as concerns and even took a phone call in the middle of my visit?

Again, I know it’s risky to just wait until something happens, but I feel like it’s really the only choice I have that makes sense.

I’m trying to make them aware of what’s going on at work. Hopefully keeping them aware will help me out when it comes to being uncomfortable at work. We were talking about taking a trip or two this summer, but until this is sorted, I’m not planning any Orlando vacations. I’m still planning to see Lifehouse at the end of June, but dammit I’m not giving that up.

I’m also gonna call tomorrow to find out how much the Lortab would cost. I wouldn’t really say it’s a strong enough pain to need Lortab, but it’s strong enough that I can’t ignore it and none of the other otc pain killers are touching it so I’d kind of like to have the Lortab for the longer shifts at work. I’d rather be sleepy while I’m there than hurting.

So wish me luck while I wait it all out!

Farber doesn’t open back up until June 9th, and they don’t offer an option to pay inflated health fees to use their services during the summer. The guy on the phone actually laughed at me when I asked, which really pissed me off–it was a valid question; there are various services on campus that you can pay for a-la-carte during the summer months to access. Believe I’m putting in a complaint, especially after the way the rest of my day went.

So I started checking all the walk-in clinics around town and apparently we’re down to one. When all was said and done, I paid $140 for the visit alone, and $195 for blood work and a urine test. That’s $335 I paid out of pocket today. I had $145 in my PayPal account so the rest of that’s coming out of what I was using to pay rent.

What did $335 get me? Not a fucking thing. I got a visit with a doctor who answered a fucking phone call during our meeting and completely ignored my thoughts on the possibility of it being mono.

Did I get any answers for $335? No, I fucking didn’t. For $335 I got told that I need another fucking $2800 for a CT Scan to maybe figure out what’s wrong. Let’s not even think of other ways of checking me out since we’re all very aware that this is out-of-pocket.

To say I’m pissed is an understatement. I’m upset, I’m hurt, I’m angry…and to boot, I still don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. There’s the very small hope that I may get some sort of answers from the blood work, but I think we all know by now that I just don’t have any good luck when it comes to that. It’ll all come back normal, I’m sure.

If anyone ever asks in the future why I ignore problems for so long instead of going to the doctor, this is why. I always get the runaround, whether it’s my body’s fault, or the fault of the doctors. It usually just causes more stress than it’s worth to eventually find out it’s something that isn’t a big deal.

I’m so fucking upset right now!

I mean damn….there’s no way it costs THEM $195 to process the blood work. And there’s no way it costs $2800 to turn on the CT machine. Why is it okay for them to charge so much? I just don’t fucking understand.

EDIT: Oh and I forgot to mention he prescribed me Lortab for the pain………..uhh thanks, but that’s totally not necessary and I’m really not sure how you expect me to be able to pay for Loatab after that visit bill?!

Not so much a complaint as just updating those I don’t often talk to and also a reminder for me should I need to look back to keep up with time-frames and such…

Today at work I realized that a lot of problems I’ve been having lately could very logically be a mono-relapse. I’m trying to be as non-hypochondriac as I can be in assessing the situation and it really all makes sense.

Lately it hasn’t been odd for me to be ready and able to go to bed by 8pm. I’m ready to go back to bed within just a few hours of getting up, even if I haven’t done anything significant with my time. I’ve been complaining to Ryan about an unusual amount of muscle aches in muscles that I haven’t been using out of the ordinary, and my work-induced aches aren’t fading as they normally do. I’ve also been having a lot of abdominal pain, which I’ve been assuming had something to do with the missing-menstruation-situation, but this morning I realized it’s only been on my right side. Once I realized that, it really became clear that this has been the same dull ache I had during my mono-stint with my not-so-swollen spleen. It also became clear that every time I’ve gotten up to do anything at all–put a few dishes up, make a sandwich, etc–I’ve experienced a feverish heat. I took my temp at the beginning of my lunch break, end and also once I got home, and I am, indeed, running a low temp.

Now, I know it’s not a very common thing for people to actually have mono a second time, but 10% of people do, and I did have a weird case the first time around with a limited number of symptoms. At this point I’m not saying, “hey, I’ve got mono,” I’m just realizing it’s a very big possibility. On Tuesday I’m gonna make a call to the school clinic and find out what I’d have to pay in health fees to see a doctor since I’m not in classes this semester. Even though there’s nothing to do other than wait it out, I’d like to know–If I do, in fact, have mono again, we’ll discuss how much, if any, swelling I have in my spleen this time around and figure out if I can be okay with just cutting to short-shifts at work. I’d like to avoid rupturing my spleen since, well, ow….and uninsured surgery would probably leave me all but homeless…

On the female front–one month in and still no sign. For those counting, that makes 4 months with no period. I had cramps the day I should’ve started, but that was about it. Originally the doctor wanted to see me in two months, so if I pay the health fees to the school, I’ll probably go back to her after the next missed one.

So yeah, those are the current events in my ridiculously unhappy body.

So when my computer died, I said, “Screw it…” and started re-reading Harry Potter. It sucked me back in a lot stronger than I thought it would since I already know what happens…

Now that the computer is back, I’ve gotten the rest of Smallville back, and a show I was working on getting called Popular. You may remember it as a WB show 1999-2000. It’s got a lot of faces you’d recognize now from various places, so it’s fun to see that.

Besides that, ohhhh the entertaining teen drama! It’s got the soap opera theme down!

So I need to finish Smallville, but I’d started watching Popular while I was waiting on it and reading Harry Potter….plus I’ve got more than my share of hours at work—I don’t even have time to be bored this summer, and I think I’m okay with that.

Experiencing such a catastrophe with my computer put me into survival mode, thinking of things to do to prevent something like this in the future, and since there are no guarantees in life, what could I do in the event that something like this happens again…

As per usual, I was browsing what they had on sale in Buy.com’s Weekly Deals, and they gave me an answer!

I’ve never been huge on laptops, I’d just never want one as my default computer, but I’ve always entertained the idea of having one for classes, trips, and hey!—When my computer is incapacitated for one reason or another

This week they’ve got an awesome little HP Pavilion Notebook for only $699, and of course, free shipping! Talk about a price cut. It’s just right for me as far as notebooks go; it has the scroll section on the touch pad (which I’d to have) and a sexy 17″ monitor =) Makes my geek-heart happy.

And of course, they’re keeping things rolling for me–they’ve got another great deal on a 500GB External, and a ridiculously awesome deal on Double Layer DVD+R! Double layer dvds hold 8.5GB as opposed to the normal 4.7GB, and they’re selling 50 (two 25packs) for under $40.

It’s almost like they’re taunting me with just how easy it would’ve been for me to save everything before my tragic file loss! My list of things to save for just keeps growing!

So when it came to it, Ryan couldn’t fix it, and the computer guy we were planning on taking it to owns his own little business and he’s out this week. So it was time for the dreaded reformat.

I had already taken off everything I just had to have, so I sat and thought about it and just told Ryan to go ahead and do it without me double-checking. I figured, if it was important enough, I got it the first time and if I looked again, I’d just be reminded of everything I was about to wipe out.

Now I’m back, enjoying the challenge of re-organizing and checking for any major losses that I need to recoup. Things look a little different; I explained to Ryan that I keep my Windows set up with Classic Menus so he set it to Performance Mode (forgive me if I’m remembering that wrong) so everything pretty much has the classic look already and it takes less RAM….or something to that effect–anyway so visually some of my fonts and graphics and stuff look a little different, but it won’t take long to get used to them.

All in all, I’m okay with it. I lost some things I’ll probably never even remember I had, and some things I know I’ll have to work to get back, and I already am, but I’m cool with a fresh start. I had a lot of stuff I was ready to wipe out anyway, so this way I had no choice.

One of my biggest annoyances has actually been with Firefox. They’ve done away with some of the plugins I frequently used (or at least hidden them in another dimension…) and also changed their setup for the search engine manager (if you have it, it probably sits in your top right corner, defaulted to Google) so I can’t add back some of the ones I used more frequently. Changes, changes.

Soon we’re gonna add another hard drive to my computer. The system and any installed programs will run off one hard drive,  all of my files and everything will be on another. This way, in about 99% of possible situations, if I get a virus I can just reformat the hard drive containing the operating system.

It’s something BJ’s in the process of doing (or maybe just finished…) for Brittany’s computer and I think it’s a perfect idea. Once Ryan’s computer guy is back in town, Ryan will be taking his in to fix a heat sensor and I’ll probably have him go ahead and look into what kind of deals we can get on that extra hard drive.

Barring that, I’m getting an external with a TeraByte…I can’t stop drooling over the idea of that!

I don’t like that I can’t come home and plop down in my chair and chat with Kristi about the weirdos I just saw at Wal Mart or sit and watch the episode of The Office that popped into my head while I was there…or finally finish watching Smallville which should have been done by Friday.

I hate that I didn’t get to play Fab’s quiz because my phone won’t play his audio clip. And I’m missing trivia, which I suck at but still look forward to daily. Of course everyone is also sending me quiz requests on Facebook but I can’t do anything with them either.

I can’t check out the awesome doggy version of LOLcats I just heard about or look up how long it normally takes for a bruised bone to heal…or even send BJ and Brittany the useful websites I promised I’d pass along.

I can’t even tell if I have blatant typos because I’m only even seeing two characters next to each other!

I’m not 12 and I live in an apt so it’s not as if I can just go outside and play…and you can only watch so much weekend television.

Yes, I’m a dork and a shut-in and I spend way too much time on the computer, but I like me that way dammit! And this is just miserable…

Ryan’s best friend (the other one who lives out of town) and his gal Brittany are getting married in November! They were here for a bit on Friday so we got to hear all the plans and they’re really having an awesome wedding!

The rehearsal dinner is on Halloween so we’re all wearing costumes and it’s a pizza and s’mores meal! Of course I’ve now forgotten what they’re serving at their awesome reception, but I remember it’s a dessert reception!

Her wedding march is the theme from The Princess Bride! And thier cake-cutting song is “Grow Old With You” from The Wedding Singer!

Ryan is BJ’s best man and he’s sort of struggling to figure out what they should do for his bachelor party. BJ doesn’t drink anymore so we’ve talked about maybe setting up a really big guy’s game night. Rent a projector & screen and pull together all our game systems and even set up some poker tables for in between tournaments. I think that’s gonna be his best bet. Add in some good, messy food and I think it’ll be perfect for BJ.

This is actually a wedding I look forward to!

So I sat around for a while; I called my mom to waste some time. Now I’ve watched the eight episodes of Sex and the City that are up on HBO OnDemand while cleaning and even sweeping our room and now I don’t know what else to do. I’ve given into blogging on my phone. This is a big deal because Wordpress doesn’t format properly on my phone and the post entry box is literally two characters wide.

If I weren’t so utterly broke right now I’d have gone and bought some books but of course I have less than $30 to my name until Friday.

I did finally find the remote for the dvd player so maybe I should dig back into the Johnny Depp collection tonight…hmmm good idea.