I posted this comment a while back, but thought it was important enough to include it in my Journal as well so people could still see it.

The link http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84671&cid=7389912 is here .

Here's my comment that was most pertinent:

Thanks for the great questions, happy to answer to the best of my ability: 1) Treatment is usually IMMEDIATE REMOVAL OF THE CANCEROUS TESTICLE. When I say immediate, I mean usually the same day you find out, or if not that day, then the next.
2) Depending on if the tumor is encapsulated inside the testicle, it may or may not have spread. What this means is that even if they successfully remove it, and are very sure that it hasn't spread, there is STILL NO WAY TO KNOW if it really has spread or not, except to do MORE surgery. The second surgery that is recommended is essentially a massive lymph node removal. These are the lymph nodes where testicular cancer usually spreads to next.
3) Normally, only one testes becomes cancerous, afaik. I didn't get into it too much with my doctor.
4) Radiation and/or chemo CAN leave you quite sterile. Usually, before doing this, if you are still interested in having children, you would, after the removal of the cancerous testicle, then be encouraged to freeze as much sperm as possible.

By the way, I'm going to plug my doctor here, because he is absolutely FABULOUS and did an absolutely AMAZING job. The lymph node removal surgery took slightly over 2 hours, which as far as I am aware, is VERY fast. My recovery time was about 3 weeks (to be at least semi-comfortable). I'm currently 6 months out from that surgery, and I'm back to normal in all ways except an 18 inch scar from my pubes to my sternum, and a half-empty ball sac.

His name is:
John Freeman, M.D.
Nevada Urology Associates
(775) 786-3895
699 Sierra Rose Dr, Reno, NV 89511
http://www.americasdoctor.com/Physician_profile.as p?site=0059

So I've been thinking about Revolutions. I haven't seen it yet, and even though I was so psyched to see Reloaded earlier this year, for some reason, I'm not all that interested in Revolutions. I'm pretty sure I'm going to wait until the DVD comes out, as I do have a kickass stereo...

Does anyone out there have any compelling reason it would be better in the theatre?

Well, it's official. It's that time of year when I plan my yearly outing to Disneyland.

I know, it's old, it's decrepit, it sucks, etc. But you know what, I don't go for me. I go for my KIDS. They don't know that it sucks. To them, it's MAGIC. To them, it is the greatest place in the world. Watching their faces, holding them when they're scared, enjoying the spectacle of it all through them, is the best feeling in the world.

So we're planning on going next August probably, maybe February. Either way, total cost should be around $2,300, for 2 adults, 2 kids, 6 nights, 5 days, all meals, gas, lodging, tickets, etc. covered. We're buying one of their packages. Seems like a crapload of money, but at the same time, SO worth it.

I've been going to Disneyland at least once a year since I was 1 year old, and I've always enjoyed it, even though I know every turn and thrill on every ride, it's never the same experience.

Maybe we'll go in February. I don't know if I can wait almost a whole nother year!

So I've started using Mandrake Linux 9.1 at home.

So far, I'm SO damned pleased with it. Playing AA:O on it, and it's sweet, as well as Q3A, RA3, and some other Linux games too. It's so damned stable and works so very well on my 1533mhz AMD Athlon XP.

I'm still a noob on Linux, so I'm not completely comfortable yet with how it works, but I'm very impressed with the way it handles security, how user accounts work, the File System setups, and how easy it was to set it up to see and use my Windows NTFS drives. I also love the LILO boot manager, it's so nice to be able to dual-boot so easily. Personally, I don't think I'll ever using anything like VMWare, too much overhead for so little gain.

I like Gnome so far, prefer it over KDE. Xfree86 seems to work ok, I'm not sure what all the hullaballoo lately over it is all about.

Seems like I need to get a book or a class to really get to the point where I can start doing some more interesting things with it. I'm interested in learning Perl and/or PHP to brush up on some non-Microsoft skillsets that have been languishing. I remember writing some pretty wacky eggdrop scripts in perl a long time ago, in an OS far far away.

So.... I got a ticket to the Trilogy on Dec. 16th! WOOHOO. My theatre had a promotion where if you paid a little more, you got to have unlimited ANYTHING you want from the snack bar. So I can have popcorn, sodas, candy, and whatever all day long. SW33T! Ugh... I look like an 3L1T3 bastage for that. :)

Anyway, I am so stoked. My boss laughed when I told him why I was taking that day off. I love my job so much...

I'm not sure I really want to go see Matrix: Revolutions in the theatres. I'm just not that excited about it for some reason. Might be ROTK fever taking over my brain. I'm in the middle of reading the book for the third time this year.

The special features just weren't as much fun as the first Matrix movie. Oh well, that's too bad.

Even though I've had the movie from BT for months now, I still bought the DVD, as I really believe that DVDs are an excellent value, and have no problem supporting the MPAA in this regard. Still think they suck balls in regard to movie theatres though.

Having a lot of fun at work these days. The only other developer here has left, so I've got some great job security for a while. I'm totally kicking ass and keeping up with projects so far, and having a good time doing it. It's nice to be appreciated and needed at your work.

What is this? How do I get out? Why is my hair getting longer?