I am a proud father once more over today! My first son was born today. My last name, which was my grandfather’s, can now live on… I was the only male left in my family with that last name so a big “woo hoo”!

Fischer, welcome to this world my little buddy. I will do my best to guide you through the crazy things that life can bring and will always be there for you when you need me. Thank you for being another piece of the best part of my life. I love you, your sisters, and your Mommy more than anything else in this world!

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Not here! Pfew! So lets time travel here for a moment. About 2 months ago you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of your newest addition. But all of a sudden you notice a good sized lump down below on one of your boys. With this following post you are going to be whisked through my journey on what happened to me and what all I had to go through.

So first off, let me say that occasional self examination is very important. Breast or Testicle, either way cancer can spread very quickly so it is important to be on top of these things. For me, it was just by some kind of random itch that I noticed it at all. If you have any abnormalities it is very important to schedule a doctor’s appointment right away. Chances are likely that it is nothing, but because of the chance of spreading, procrastination is not an option.

So now you have gone to the appointment. After waiting in the lobby 45 minutes past your appointment time you finally get to be taken to a room where you wait another 15 minutes for your doctor. Oh well, thats the way things go. So you talk about what is going on and eventually you get the examination. This goes beyond the typical “turn your head and cough” that you would get with a physical. This will involve a lot more hands on squeezing and prodding by the doctor. Once the doctor confirms your suspicion, you must now have an Ultrasound. Yes, the very same thing they do on Pregnant ladies to see the Babies in their tummies.

So now you make a separate Ultrasound appointment that is so overbooked due to all the pregnant ladies and such that it is about another month before you can be scheduled in. Again, another very important reason to be very ahead of the game. If it is cancer, the sooner you start this process, the sooner it gets dealt with. If there is any worry at all, they Ultrasound both Testicles and your Scrotum. I know, you almost just want to sign yourself up for this just out of how fun it sounds so far right?

So the month+ finally goes by and you finally get in for the Ultrasound. This part really disappointed me. In my case, I was taken into a room. Got naked and put the frock on. Unlike with pregnancies, they do not allow you to have a “viewing” monitor. So everything is done and you get no point of reference or anything to look at while it is being done. This stuff was really interesting to me but to just lay there and have no participation other than the object being scanned, thumbs down. I know I’m sure it is just to save time and prevent a billion and 1 questions from the worriers, but come on, this stuff is interesting, show me! How often are you going to be in a predicament where your boys are getting scanned, might as well make the most out of it…

So anyway, the Ultrasound process consists of the following. You know that gel that they put on the woman’s stomach? Well guess what, you get a whole lot of it squirted down on your boys and elsewhere. In an effort to not displease the ladies that normally get it on their tummies for pregnancy, they keep the gel heated so that it will not make them cold. Well heated gel may feel okay on a tummy, but on my boys, yeah, not so much. Could have been a few degrees cooler, however, I do appreciate the fact that it was not cold. The situation is embarrassing enough so the last thing you need is shrinkage. So like I said, she sprayed that on me and then the exam started. Basically other than being asked to “bear down” a couple times, it was really just laying there for 30 minutes while she sensored me left, right, and down…she works her way all around saving images here and there for the file.

After that process is done, all of your Ultrasound images are sent off to a Radiology Expert that analyzes the images. 2-3 business days later that Expert contacts your doctor with the findings. If good, your doctor sends you a letter saying you have nothing to worry about, if bad, well, needle biopsy does not sound too good to me.

I got the letter on Friday, saying that everything was benign and that the lump attached to my buddy was actually cysts. So as cancer goes, I am in the clear! I am extremely glad that I did not ever have to describe what a testicular needle biopsy feels like. Overall, the experience was alright, I mean, it had to be done. Nobody wants to have all their “parts” touched left and right by strangers and such, well, at least in this way. But you have to set aside worry and such, better to go though this kind of stuff than have to find out you waited too long and now you have it in your lymph nodes or brain…

An FDA page I just googled real quick. If you want to do any further reading on the subject:
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/196_test.html

This post was my experience. Your experience may be much different than mine, however I did want to share mine with all of you.

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Its PHP Friday!
The PHP Friday Series

It is time once again for another PHP the Language playing card, the third of its kind. I really loved collecting trading cards way back when in my youth. So I decided that if PHP had a trading card game, perhaps the cards may look just like this. We honor our Baseball and Football heroes with collectible trading cards, lets do the same for our “PHP Heroes”. If there was such a thing as real cards, the people I create cards for are the ones I would try to track down and collect.

The PHP language has some excellent personalities backing it. One of the personalities that sticks out all the time to me is Terry Chay. I had heard his name originally as it was associated many times with Plaxo back when he still worked for them. But the first time I knew he was an Engineer I needed to keep an eye out for was when I heard about his OSCON presentation titled “The Underpants Gnomes Strategy Guide: An eCards Case Study”. Anybody with that kind of sense of humor is somebody worth listening to.

I am a subscriber of his blog and always look forward to his next post. His blog is always entertaining as he mixes in technical posts right along with everything else. He has a way with mixing in comical antics along with technical posts where he still comes across as an experienced developer, intelligent, and hilarious. You can tell that Terry is so passionate about what he does. These type of people are what make us and the PHP language itself so lucky to have.

Next planned PHP the Language Card: Ed “Funkatron” Finkler

“PHP the Language” Playing Cards Credits:
The overall card design is based off of the card playing game Magic the Gathering
“Poker” style cards have already been created - Check Them Out

Terry Chay Card Credits:
Original image located here: georges flicker

Terry Links From Card & Elsewhere:
http://terrychay.com/
http://terrychay.com/blog/

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Natron tagged me in his 8 facts post. Thank you very much Natron for tagging me! On a side note, I really enjoyed the Dragdown tracks. I hope Dragdown’s July 7th show rocks! Get in contact with Natron for more info about his band…

So lets dive into my little world and find out some more about me…

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Ms Danielle was the winner of the John Chow Zune contest. She is now “White Elephant”‘n the thing and offering her own Zune contest.

Ms Danielle’s blog is one of the feeds that I keep in my Blog Reader because she writes great posts all the time. It is definitely a very interesting blog site.

As I have previously stated, the content on her site is just absolutely great. Contest or no contest, if you have not been there before, go check it out. Another blogging site that has this great blogging community wrapped around it.

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