There seems to be a bug in my XP system that does the following every
time I place the computer into sleep mode and then turn it on again:
the moment I access a Word document, it automatically brings up a
deviant version of spell check that is forever stuck on the same word
and the same document. In order to get out of this document and kill
spell checker, I need to click on the spell checker some 20 or so
times or log off of the computer. How do I fix this problem?

Hi jjdon !  If you want getting off from the bugs of Microsoft
products, most of the time the lastest products or some updates.  So
about windows xp and office products, the way to work without bugs is
to get office xp WITH THE 2 SERVICE PACK ! Uninstall word or office
2000, and install the xp version.

Microsoft does not produce as much product's version just to make
money, sure they wanna make so much, but there is too much bugs to
fix.  Get the laster version and say Bye Bye ;)

  Beubliss

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;230144
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;211275

Word 2000 has some bugs with the spell check feature, as you can see
from the above links.   If neither of these articles solve your
problem, perhaps the tip to use ESC would at least kill the spell
checker without a lot of frustration.

Good luck.

Visit www.officupdate.com and get any freely available patches and
fixes.
...then if it still is an issue, delete the normal.dot template, which
will be recreated when you restart Word - this can fix several issues.

But a product upgrade to the Office XP is the final recommended
solution!