Dead Drive

As I write this, my blog is not working. On Sunday night as I was typing up another blog post (which I may or may not post- some of it is no longer relevant) the server this blog is hosted on suddenly died. Some quick diagnostics showed that the main hard drive was dead (at least we think so- fsck on that drive would cause a kernel panic, which is not normal behaviour). Due to various issues it took until Tuesday to get a new drive in and the operating system installed. As my emails go through the server, we set up a temporary account so that my normal email forwarding would work again. Luckily it seems I’ve not lost many- most of the important ones from Monday and Tuesday seem to have come through, along with lots of unimportant ones from Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

All the accounts on the server had been backed up on the 14th (the weekly backup), and I have a database backup for my blog from the 15th. Once the backup drive is reconnected all the accounts will be restored, and that will mean my blog should work again and I’ll be able to post this. That should happen later today (Wednesday). It’s very frustrating, especially since I’m no longer well enough to sort it out like I used to, which would have sped things up a bit (Colin working is one of the reasons it took a while to sort out).

Normally my email system makes me happy. Everything is backed up on the server, then it gets forwarded to GMail. So long as the server is working, this means I have two copies of all my emails, which means that should I lose access to my GMail account it won’t be anything more than a minor inconvenience. I may need to rethink it after this though. I don’t mind massively my blog being down for a few days, but I’m going to start keeping my own backups on my computer so if something like this happens again I’d be able to move it quickly if needed (which would also solve the email problem as I could set up the forwarding again from wherever I move it).

Apart from the server playing up so I was without access to my emails for a couple of days and my blog for three, I’ve been doing not brilliantly. I think I’m relapsing a bit. Monday I slept for 20 hours, which meant I didn’t eat. Tuesday I saw the nurse, but wasn’t well at all and couldn’t hold my head up, which was very uncomfortable (the harness held my body up so I wasn’t slumped anywhere near as much as I would have been otherwise). I’ve also been in a lot of pain- at midnight I took two tramadol (I can normally manage with one) but I’m still in too much pain to sleep, despite being sleepy enough. I managed to go on the computer for a bit on Tuesday evening to sort things out, do a Tesco shop and manage a couple of easy quests in World of Warcraft, but it was a bad idea really as I’m paying for it now. Before that I’d not been out of bed since Friday night, other than to see the nurse. I’m mostly bedbound again.

So, seeing the nurse. We’re about 10-15 minutes pushing distance (took about 10 minutes to get there, 15 minutes back) from the doctors surgery, and my head was floppy the entire time, which was very annoying and uncomfortable. It turns out the appointment was an hour later than Johan thought, and by the time I got there I was feeling really ill. The nurse was able to squeeze us in though so I didn’t have to go back. We went in and it was fine. She noticed my penguins and told me see had been to New Zealand and seen some there (good move- talking about penguins automatically makes me calmer) and then we went through some of the registration questions (Johan had told her about me at his appointment so I didn’t have to answer all of them). She told Johan off for not taking in his urine sample (he’d forgotten) but it was in such a nice way he didn’t feel bad. I told her my height and weight as they don’t have the facilities to do them if you can’t stand there, and she didn’t ask to take my blood pressure or anything probably because she could see it would have been too much for me. She told me if I needed a home visit at any time that is no problem (she knew from me having to cancel last week that sometimes I’m too ill to get to the surgery) and also said she’d ask about a wheelchair assessment for me. We likes her a lot 🙂 It definitely feels like a community doctors, where everyone knows everyone (the nurse said that she was glad I’d made it in because now she could put a face to a name and she never forgets anyone) and I was spoken to in a very warm, nice way that wasn’t patronising. When we got home Johan hauled me onto the bed as I wasn’t well enough to get myself on it (not paralysed for once, just far too weak and uncoordinated) and I rested for a few hours.

Johan also went out to get a blackout blind for my bedroom. If I am starting to relapse, then this will be important to keep my room dark and try and reduce the amount of symptoms I’m getting (I’ve had periods where I’ve had to wear sunglasses in bed already). It will also help as my sleeping pattern is completely broken so sometimes I can’t sleep until it’s already light. The blind is purple so will work well in my bedroom 🙂

There is so much I want to do. I want to read. I want to go out more. I want to be able to watch my favourite television shows, not just the ones that don’t overwhelm me or don’t require my concentration. I want to be able to tidy my bedroom 😛 Maybe one day.