If A Tree Falls In A Forrest...

If I post on my blog 7 years after my last update, will anyone read it?

The Abominable Snow Honda

My wife and I are very fortunate to own two cars. We have the van, of course, but we also have my wife's old Honda, which I drive almost exclusively to and from work. I'm not fond of the Honda, but it runs and gets me from point A to B, which is all I can really ask for. It does have it's little eccentricities, such as a speedometer that only works 10% of the time and the a window that doesn't roll down.

*Fun Fact: A car will pass VA State Inspection if the speedometer doesn't work, but if the driver side window can't roll down, it'll fail.

Anyway, it's not the driver side window that fails now but the window in the back seat behind it. The gear is busted and as a result the window doesn't stay rolled up. Most of the time, regardless of weather, the window is open about 2 inches.

Enter yesterday's snowstorm.

As I was shoveling out the Honda this morning, I noticed the crack in the Honda.

So I made my way around to the other side and opened the door.

That's quite a bit of snow accumulation, don't you think? Fortunately, I learned long ago not to put anything of value in that back seat, so no worries. Still, in all my years living in Western NY, I never had to shovel off the inside of a car. To funny!

*I apologize for the poor photo quality - the limitations of a cell phone camera!

Adventures In IT #5: Dell Goes Ghetto

It dawned on me recently that I haven't updated my blog much* and have been thinking of something worthwhile to post. Fortunately, inspiration struck at work today...

*Darn you Facebook - sucker of time and life force!

Replacing a hard drive in a laptop is easy. It is even easier when Dell sends one to you with the operating system already loaded on it. All I have to do is swap out the drive, start it up and let it run through its paces. Naturally I was quite surprised when I got error saying that the system failed to nobulate.

Nobulate? Huh?

I never heard that word before, so I hopped onto Dictionary.com and looked it up - no entry found. Dell has apparently created it's own lingo. So next I entered the word into Google, and for the most part found posts of fellow humans who have also encountered this error and were obviously confused. There was, however, one site that provided a definition: urbandictionary.com

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, here is the official urban definition of nobulate: The rapid movement of a control nob on apparatus (Ex: Don't nobulate the volume, just pick a setting.)

Wow. Did we really need a singular word for that action? Was "playing with the dials" that hard to understand? And why did Dell feel the need to use this word to describe a technical issue?

As it turned out, I ended up chatting with a Dell Technician later on, and asked him to clarify the message. He or she* explained that it simply meant something failed to initialize and had me reboot the computer.*

*Sorry, Indian/Pakistani names are very hard to determine gender-wise when all you have to go on is its printed form. It reminds me of an old episode of Head of the Class where Jawaharlal mentioned that half of the people from his country were named Jawaharlal. When someone asked what the other half were called, he quipped : Mrs. Jawaharlal.

*The funny thing about this solution is that the error message made it very clear in capital letters: DO NOT REBOOT THIS SYSTEM!

So there you have it. Nobulate could mean to initialize or to play with volume knobs, depending on your background. Makes me feel sorry for all the poor confused urban computer geeks out there...

Best Case Senario

SOFT TISSUE, RIGHT SPERMATIC CORD, EXCISION:
- BENIGN FIBROVASCULAR TISSUE, NO EVIDENCE OF MALIGNANCY

LYMPH NODES, PERIAORTIC, DISSECTION:
- NO HISTOPATHOLOGIC ABNORMALITY (6 NODES)

LYMPH NODES, PERICAVAL, DISSECTION
- NO HISTOPATHOLOGIC ABNORMALITY (5 NODES)

And there we have it. I had my follow up appointment today, two weeks after my surgery, and the news could not have been better. Everything came back good. What this means is that I am for all intents and purposes cancer free! Well, not completely 100% guaranteed - there is still a microscopic chance something went to the lungs. Because of that, I will be closely monitored for the next 5 years. The first two years are the important ones. For the first year, I'll have to get blood work and chest x-rays every two months. After a year, it goes to every three months, and will get progressively more infrequent with each remaining year. I'll take that over any more CT Scans and surgery!

Speaking of surgery - I'm recovering quite well. My little holes are healing nicely, I'm not in any pain and have resumed working. The only limitations I have is that I can't hold Victoria for very long.

Thanks again to everyone who have been so supportive during these past 3 months!

Surgery Recap

I'm back from my luxurious 2-night stay at the UVa Medical Center. I'm feeling OK - I'm sore, but not as bad as my first surgical procedure in December.

As requested, Meredith and I arrived at UVa around 9:30am, and then proceeded to wait for about two hours. The laproscopic surgery was done with a robot and took about 5 hours to do. I really can't give much more detail about it, because I was out the entire time. What I can say is that they shaved my belly and poked 5 holes in me. (I look like the 40-Year-Old Virgin after a mob hit.) I was told that the procedure went as smoothly as possible, and that to the naked eye, nothing looked wrong. The removed lymph nodes will be sent off to a lab for biopsy, and we'll know the result by the time I have my follow up visit on the 25th. They kept me at the hospital long enough to be sure I could walk, go to the bathroom, and eat solid foods without any difficulty.

So now I'm home. I have to wear these TED stockings as much as possible to help prevent blood clots, I'm forbidden from lifting anything heavier than a full gallon jug for at least 4 weeks (That in particular will suck, as my daughter weighs significantly more than a milk jug), and I have my good friend Percoset to ease any pain.

I want to sincerely thank everyone who kept me and my family in their thoughts and prayers during this unfortunate time. I greatly appreciate it and I am humbled to have so many caring friends.

3 Favors

The Good News: After working a minimum of 5 hours every day for the past 41 days, I'll have the next 5 days off.

The Bad News: I won't get to enjoy it.

Those of you who have been reading my blog, communicating with me on Facebook, or have had actual human contact with me know that tomorrow I'm going to the hospital for more surgery. If I'm lucky, this will be the last thing ever removed from my body. Today I get to prep by drinking like a fish and eating nothing but jello or chicken broth. The surgery is set for 10:00AM tomorrow, and I'll be spending a minimum of one night there. My personal hope is that I'm home by Valentine's Day. I'm sure my wife will post updates on her Facebook and MySpace pages, but I'll give a complete report when I am able to get back online.

So while I was thinking how I was going to word this post, I thought of the concept of asking for 3 favors - one for me, one for yourself, and one for someone else. All 3 are quick and simple to do, and it would mean a lot if anyone reading this performed these small tasks.

A Favor For Me - I'm a big proponent of the power of prayer. I honestly believe it is our greatest weapon against all the crap that happens in our lives. So, tomorrow, I ask you say a small prayer for me, that my surgery goes well and my recovery is swift. Nothing fancy. And for those of you who don't have the Lord on speed-dial, sending warm happy thoughts my way works too.

A Favor For Yourself - Give yourself a test. The ball got rolling (literally!) on all this when I checked myself and found a lump. It easy to do, doesn't take long and can be done in the privacy of the shower. Don't know what to look for? Click here if you're a guy or here if you're a gal.

A Favor For Someone Else - I've been meaning to post this for awhile, and now is good a time as any. Go to The Breast Cancer Site and click on the link to donate a mammogram to someone who may need it. It doesn't cost anything!

Thanks again for all the support. I'll see you in a few days!

Choices

Yesterday, my wife and I traveled to the urology department at the UVa Medical Center. The purpose of this trip was to discuss what options I had in my treatment for my cancer. My father-in-law, who works in the cardiology department there, joined us. Basically I had three options:

1. Surgery: Testicular cancer is very predictable. From the testicles, it travels up towards a set of lymph nodes near my intestines and kidneys. There are actually two sets - one associated with each testicle. Although my blood tests and the markers the doctors looked for came clean, there is still a chance something microscopic got through. By removing the lymph nodes, they can biopsy and see if they are clean. If they are, great, I close that particular door and proceed to be observed. The observation segment would involve CT scans every 6 months for a few years, followed by yearly scans and at year 5, just doctor's visits. If the biopsy finds something, it's still good because we removed it already, and my observation schedule would be more frequent.

2: Observation only: I could avoid surgery and choose to be monitored only. I would submit myself to frequent blood tests and CT scans, with the amount decreasing over time. The downside to this option is if they find anything during one of these tests, I still have the surgery and start over with the observations.

3: Chemotherapy: Basically I was told that because of my situation and the type of tumor I had, this wasn't a recommended option. This of course, relieved me to no end.

Given the options (mainly between surgery and observation), I elected to have the surgery. It seems more finite to me and will allow me to return to a normal life sooner. Obviously, with all surgery, there are risks - the biggest one being that it can cause what is called retrograde ejaculation. What this means is that when I release sperm, instead of traveling the normal route, it gets redirected to my bladder. I won't feel a thing, but when Mer and I try to conceive, we'll need some help from medical science. This risk occurs in less than 10% of cases, so I thought that was acceptable. Anyway, the surgery is set for Feb 12st, with a pre-op date set for Feb 5th.