Picking Things Up
Sep/090
So… what’s been going on?
The next day, Dr. Maiman called and all but apologized for the nurse. (Doctors can’t really apologize — too many lawsuits.) Dr. Maiman referred us to Dr. Linga Reddy. We saw Dr. Reddy who thinks it’s a vascular issue. We’re going through some more tests and eventually, she’ll have an angiogram of her spine done. That should tell us what we’re really looking at.
As for everything else, I’m still hanging on to the end of the rope. Nothing is getting any easier yet.
Breaking Point
Jul/090
However you want to put it, tonight I ran out of rope.
I don’t remember the last time I cried at anything that actually mattered. (I cry about stupid shit like “waiting for my real life to begin” on Scrubs)
Yesterday, a nurse practitioner from Dr. Maiman’s office called and explained that there is nothing wrong with Heather’s spine, that this is not a neurological issue, and that we should follow up with urology. Never mind the foot drop, the weakness, numbness, the pain, the burning skin, and the fact that we already followed up with urology and they told us that it is without a doubt a neurological problem.
Please keep in mind, I have the deepest respect for anyone in the medical industry. Given that: if you can’t say anything intelligent, keep your mouth shut.
It took a day to sink in, but this evening after work, I broke down with Heather and we just cried and held each other for a while. I also called Dr. Maiman’s office and demanded an appointment to talk with him and not some lackey. We’ll see how that goes.
I’m tired. I’m hurting. I can’t do this on my own anymore.
Lame Command Line MySQL Database Duplication
Jul/090
echo “create database new” | mysql -u root
mysqldump -u root old | mysql -u root new
Results from Urology
Jul/090
It’s officially neurological. All her plumbing works. MRI scheduled for next week.
Quiet
Jul/090
Somewhere around the time I stopped writing last, we spent an evening at the E.R. Let’s just say that Heather was having some “issues” and that after 6 hours in the E.R., they had solved the immediate “issue”, but hadn’t solved the recurring “issue” and sent her home with another annoying “issue”.
How’s that for vague?
Other than that, life moves on.
People Freakin Annoy Me
Jul/090
What’s the best way to scare away your audience? Insult them.
I hate people. As a general rule, they’re stupid and panicky, and just want to be told what to do. How else would organized religion and modern governments exist? I really want to rant about this, but I’m not going to. Instead, I will leave you with the inspirational words that lived brazen beneath the top brake light on the ‘86 Camaro I drove in high-school:
Form your own opinions.
Multi-Purpose
Jul/090
It’s been a busy few days…
Thursday morning, Heather was doing particularly not well and we wound up in the emergency room starting around noon. The ER docs handed her off to neurosurgery, who handed her off to urology, who didn’t really help much. Thanks to some relaxing and some Valium, she seems to be doing better right now. We’ll see how the next couple of days play out. (For those of you who don’t know how visits to the ER work, we got home slightly after midnight with a diagnosis that was exactly the same as the symptoms she went in with, as well as a “come back if you notice” list also including all of the symptoms she went in [and walked out] with.)
Jason called me the other day. He’d just heard about mom. I honestly feel like I should call him back, but I have absolutely no idea what to say to him. Jason and I haven’t talked in a while and I know there some messy feelings going on, at least on my side. Even so, “not avoiding communication” is on my list of things that are making life better, so I need to find a way to connect with him.
There’s a lot more, I’m sure, but I’m not really in the mood to go into it right now…
I know you mean what you say, but you don’t always say what you think. You keep almost everything of what goes on inside you close to your chest, and you don’t let anyone see what you’re thinking unless you want them to.
Reflections on an EMG
Jul/090
Heather’s EMG went better than expected. That is to say that it wasn’t the worst thing she’s ever been through, not that it was actually pleasant. The doctor was Andrew Nelson and, like I said, he was funny and good at his job. It’s just that an EMG is a pretty sucky test to start with. At any rate, the test came back mostly normal. The only anomaly that Dr. Nelson mentioned was that there was some “old nerve damage” in her left calf. Now, as far as I could see the screen, the left calf never did show the sine-wave during the conductivity test, nor did it ever give the clear raindrops on the signal level test. I’m no expert on EMG, but that seems like more than just “old nerve damage” to me. But again, I am not a doctor. We’ll see what Dr. Maiman has to say when he calls.
Fuck Twitter
Jun/090
Not that anyone cares what I think about social networking sites, but fuck Twitter. It’s freakin stupid. It’s pretty much the epitome of maintaining useless excuses for relationships without any effort or follow-through on either side for the sole purpose of making sad people feel like they have friends. That and in the couple of months that I’ve had a twitter account I’ve not mentioned it to anyone and I’ve gotten ten spam followers. Fuck twitter.
Access, Modify, and Change
Jun/090
What are Access, Modify, and Change as returned by the ’stat’ command?
What better way than to learn by example? First, we start with no file:
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat foo
stat: cannot stat `foo': No such file or directory
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$
Next we make our file:
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ echo "Hello, World" > foo
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat foo
File: `foo'
Size: 12 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 246126 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ rwill) Gid: ( 1000/ rwill)
Access: 2009-06-29 16:25:21.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-06-29 16:25:06.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-06-29 16:25:06.000000000 -0500
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$
We can now see that our file exists and as expected, Access, Modify, and Change are all the same. Now, lets read something from the file:
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat foo
File: `foo'
Size: 12 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 246126 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ rwill) Gid: ( 1000/ rwill)
Access: 2009-06-29 16:25:21.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-06-29 16:25:06.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-06-29 16:25:06.000000000 -0500
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$
We can now see that we Accessed the file (read from it) 15 seconds after it was created. Now, let’s write to the file:
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ echo "Hello Foo" >> foo
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat foo
File: `foo'
Size: 22 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 246126 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ rwill) Gid: ( 1000/ rwill)
Access: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$
Oh no! Everything changed. Of course it did. By writing to the file, it was Accessed, Modified, and Changed. But don’t “Modify” and “Change” mean the same thing? Not exactly. A Modification is always a Change, but a Change is not necessarily a Modification. Changes that are not Modifications include renaming, changing the permissions, etc:
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ chmod 644 foo
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat foo
File: `foo'
Size: 22 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 246126 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ rwill) Gid: ( 1000/ rwill)
Access: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-06-29 16:28:26.000000000 -0500
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ mv foo bar
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat bar
File: `bar'
Size: 22 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 246126 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ rwill) Gid: ( 1000/ rwill)
Access: 2009-06-29 16:29:29.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-06-29 16:29:28.000000000 -0500
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$
How about a homework assignment? What happens when you move a file?
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ mkdir baz
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ mv bar baz
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$ stat baz/bar
File: `baz/bar'
Size: 22 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 246126 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ rwill) Gid: ( 1000/ rwill)
Access: 2009-06-29 16:29:29.000000000 -0500
Modify: 2009-06-29 16:27:05.000000000 -0500
Change: 2009-06-29 16:30:29.000000000 -0500
rwill@rwill-laptop:~$
That’s right. A Change, but not a Modification. It’s all so clear now, isn’t it?
Cheers –