Convert negative statistic value to positive bits?

I have no idea how it works, but I found this post which gave me the answer:

https://devcentral.f5.com/Community/GroupDetails/tabid/1082223/asg/51/aft/1144711/showtab/groupforums/Default.aspx

I have to get both the high and low value of the statistic, and feed it to this method. Multiply the return value by 8, and it gives me the value I want:

Math::BigInt->new("0x" . unpack("H*", pack("N2", $high, $low)))