Hi, I see my question is gone? Did I do something wrong? (sm)

I'm having a lot of trouble with MSWord 2003 (using the backspace and now arrow keys). Everything freezes and that little book at the bottom keeps going and going. I read somewhere to turn off spelling and grammar, but I really can't do that. I have field codes inserted in my document (to add date, name, stuff like that). Is that the problem?