lenevo g500 pointer broken after last massive update

I have a G500 lenevo laptop that is was running a fresh version of current. After that last huge update, my laptop pointer (via the laptop pad) was broken. My wireless is also out. [I guess slackware doesn't have wicd-curses anymore --so I'm have trouble getting that up too.]

I added a usb mouse to see if that would help, but I still don't have pointing ability in either console via gpm or in X.

Not sure what to do.