A raven walks through a cloudy sky with a sun in the background.
Tomorrow's weather
The University Daily Kansan
Partly cloudy with highs in the 70s and a low of 52.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Sports: A win for the Kansas men's basketball team tonight at Nebraska would be a big step towards a first-round bye in the Big 12 Tournament. SEEF PAGE 1B
SEE PAGE 1B
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2000
Inside: Victor/Victoria will be playing at 8 tonight at the Lied Center
SEE PAGE 3A
(USPS 650-640) • VOL. 110 NO. 102
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Student wins battle against cancer, urges regular exams
By Warisa Chulindra writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
When Eric Overstreet, Maize junior, returned to the University of Kansas this semester, he returned with a scar on his chest from three months of chemotherapy and bumps on his arms from all the blood tests he's had. He recently got his first haircut since August, which he considers a milestone.
But a spot on his lung remains.
Overtrest has testicular cancer.
He gets a blood test every month and a CAT scan every three months. Next month if the spot is not gone, he will undergo minor surgery to have it removed.
Testicular cancer accounts for 1 percent of cancer in men, but it is the most common type of cancer among men between the ages of 15 and 35, said Debbie Bayer, of the cancer information service at the National Cancer Institute.
She said men with an undescended testicle, a testicle that has never moved down into the scrotum, are at a higher risk of having testicular cancer. In 1999, an estimated 7,000 men in
the United States were diagnosed with testicular cancer, and 300 died from it, according to the American Cancer Society.
Overstreet began having back pains in May. He thought it was from his mattress, but the pain got worse.
"Once he said, 'hmm,' I knew it was bad news," Overstreet said.
The morning testicular cancer was diagnosed. Overstreet had surgery to remove the
At the end of July, he discovered a lump in his testicle. He went to the doctor, who thought it was nothing. Then the results of the sonogram came back.
SIGNS OF TESTICULAR CANCER
Enlargement of the testicle
Significant loss of size in one testicle A feeling of heaviness in the scrotum Dull noise in lower
Laughing, he added, "And it's an excuse to feel yourself up."
"The first of the month I always tell my friends to spend an extra 5 to 30 minutes in the shower examining their testicles," he said. "It's kind of sad because people find it embarrassing to talk about, but it's something that's really important, and every guy our age should do it. I don't want anyone else to go through it."
abdomen or groin
Sudden collection
Blood in urine
Overstreet said aside from his hearing being affected by the chemotherapy, he felt great.
Source: The Testicular Cancer Resource Center
- Pain or discomfort in the testicles or scrotum
Overstreet is open about his experience and is an advocate of monthly testicular exams.
"I haven't really noticed any difference except sometimes I lose my balance," he said. "I joke around and say, 'that's because I'm lopsided now.'"
surgery y to take tumor and the testicle. The following week, he returned to the hospital for three months of chemotherapy.
Sudden collection of fluid in scrotum
Testicular cancer has three stages. In the first stage, the cancer is in the testicle only. The second stage occurs when it has spread to the lymph nodes in the abdomen. The third stage is when the cancer has spread as far as the lungs and the liver. Overstreet had testicular cancer in early stage three.
Enlargement or tenderness of breasts
"I felt like a pinball," he said. "It happened so fast that I didn't have time to feel bad about it. If I hadn't caught it when I did, I could be dead now."
His friends said they had heard about testicular cancer, but in older men.
"It was a huge shock when one of my friends got it at age 20," said Nathan Stange, Wichita junior. "I didn't really think that it could strike people our age."
"The good thing, if anything, is if it occurs, it is treated effectively 90 percent," he said. "If there's pain, and it doesn't go away, it needs to be checked out."
Treatment depends on the type of testicular cancer. The two types are seminomas and nonseminomas. The options are surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation. Seminomas is highly sensitive to radiation, and nonseminomas is less sensitive to radiation. Seminomas is the most common type of cancer. Men who have the tumor removed can still father children.
Randall Rock, chief of staff at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said early detection was important.
Hitting the trail
George W. Bush, one of the front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination, speaks to a crowd of supporters at the Kansas City Downtown Airport. Results showing Bush's losses to John McCain in primaries in Arizona and Michigan were announced during the stopover.
Photo by Jay Sheperd/KANSAN
After his speech, Bush greets the crowd and signs autographs while Missouri Senator Kit Bond holds up a younger supporter. Bush later signed the girl's poster and then addressed the media. Photo by Jay Shepard/KANSAN
New cable rates begin in April; prices linked to channel bulk
By John Audelaheim
Kansas staff writer
write@kansan.com
Cable rates will be going up or down, depending on how many channels customers want.
Starting April 1, Sunflower Cablevision will provide 27 channels for $19.95 or 64 for $29.95. The rates will change from the price of $25.95 for 64 channels.
Patrick Knorr, general manager of Sunflower, notified the city commission last night of the change.
"Rate increases are never something any of us enjoy," he said.
Sunflower will offer the two options so customers do not have to pay for channels they do not want.
The 64-channel option will have channel 73 devoted to the University of Kansas and carry Cartoon Network and MTV. The cheaper option will not.
"I think that helps make the other increases a little easier to take," he said.
Commissioner David Dunfield said he appreciated the new choice.
Mayor Erv Hodges said residents had called asking why the rates were increasing so much.
Knorr said Sunflower needed to increase the rate because its cost of programming had increased more than 20 percent in the last two years.
David Corliss, director of legal services for the city, said the city was not responsible for regulating the rates, only for leasing the land the cable ran through.
He said that Sunflower was not a monopoly and that any other company could come in and make a proposal.
Norrr said Sunflower was replacing much of the old copper-wire cable system with fiber-optic cable, allowing the company to provide more channels and more reliable service.
Dana Gore, marketing director for Sunflower, said that when the upgrade was completed, the system would be one of the finest in the country.
In other action, the City Commission:
other action that the city manager Mike Wilden's report that the Federal Transit Administration sent him a letter yesterday approving the city's decision to award the bus system management contract to MV Transportation Inc., of Fairfield, Calif.
However, the letter said that if Lawrence wanted federal money, it needed to change its procedures for handling protests from companies that did not receive the contracts.
The city also will need to limit its contract with MV to three years and train Karin Rexroad, public transit administrator for the city, on how to award contracts.
■ Discussed how to pay for proposed improvements to the intersection at 22nd and Kasold streets. Commissioners said the city should pay about half, and commissioner Marty Kennedy proposed a leftturn lane for northbound traffic on Kasold.
Tune in or tune out:the Grammys are here
By BriAnne Hess
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
If the Backstreet Boys or N'Sync perform at the Grammy Awards tonight, Samantha Roberts, Salina senior, won't be able to tune in, but she won't miss a thing.
Roberts said she had to attend class during the awards, so her roommates will capture her favorite bands' performances on video.
Roberts said she wanted the bands to be successful, but she most wanted to watch the performances.
"I if I had my choice, of course they'd win," Roberts said. She also said that one of her friends would be very upset if TLC beat out the boy band for Record of the Year.
The Grammys go beyond the 12 categories that include Album of the Year, Best Female Performer of the Year and
Best New Artist — the awards televised on CBS. The awards consist of 100 categories that span musical genres from gospel to polka.
Two University of Kansas professors were involved in musical events that will occur mostly off screen.
Chuck Berg, professor of theater and film, voted on the Grammy nominees in eight of the 20 fields. He said he voted in some of the pop subcate-
gories that would probably be categorized, but stuck mainly to judging in categories with which he felt the most comfortable. He did vote in the jazz and movie soundtrack production fields where he had more background.
where he had met Berg said he chose not to attend the ceremony because he didn't have time this year, but he said he planned to continue to vote for the Grammys and attend the ceremony in the future.
attend the ceremony in the future. Chris Moore, assistant professor of music, will be at the awards ceremony because he was nominated in the Classical Crossover Album for his CD, Hornsmoke, with the Chestnut Brass Band Co. The award will be presented
before the broadcast starts at 8 p.m. The 42nd annual awards show will be broadcast to an international audience to more than 1.5 billion people in 170 countries.
"I haven't listened to the radio in about four years, so the Grammys don't affect me at all," Klausman said.
Some people who don't listen to mainstream music on the radio won't be tuning into the show. Michael Klausman, an employee at Love Garden Sounds, 936-1/2 Massachusetts St., said he didn't care about the awards show and that none of the other employees in the store cared either.
More information For additional information on the Grammy Awards See page 6A
He said he listened to free jazz, ethnic music and 20th-century avant garde classical, but those categories weren't included in the live telecast.
Jessica Johnson, Olathe sophomore and employee at Kief's Audio/Video, 24th and Iowa streets, won't be watching the tube, either. She said she wouldn't watch the show because she had to finish training for her job. She also said she wouldn't tune in if she could because she listened to eclectic music like Ween and The Flaming Lips.
"I don't listen to a lot of the mainstream and that's what's televised," Johnson said.