MAY 17TH 2010 DAY FIFTEEN

Well this is going to be news to many and old news to a few. It seems the cat is out of the bag and I must now let everyone know what others already do. I am in Barstow and I heard from my Doc and it seems that my leg issue was more than I let on. I was trying to keep my family from worrying, so I played the leg issue off a little. I have been experiencing something weird since I began training for this walk. It was a burning feeling in my right thigh that would run down my leg and stop above my knee. It is like my leg was set on fire. It was followed by, what I can best describe as a hot knife being put into the burn, and then followed by the entire area going numb. At first I could walk through it and then it got to the point that I would have to rest to make it go away. Ten minutes of rest and good to go. It has become more intense as the days pass. Nothing I cant handle but bothersome to say the least. The Doc said that it is my sciatic nerve that is causing it. So i have seen a doctor here and he has been helping me figure a way to ease some of this. I am writing this real time so the next blog will probably be shorter. I was prescribed Naproxen and Neurontin to reduce swelling and whatever else it is supposed to do. I am sorry that I didn't give everyone the full details earlier but ,as I said before, I didn't want people to worry. My family was pushing me around in a wheelchair just two years ago and I know that their minds would have ran wild. Here is the bottom line. I will leave at 0430 tomorrow morning and continue harder and faster than ever. I will not stop. I am good to go, and the only way I will not complete this mission on my own, is if I am dead, and if that happens, one of my friends better come drag my dead body and Mackenzie the rest of the way. I am not worried, so no one else need worry. The medicine and stretching will be enough. Once again I apologize for the delay, but there will be no more. The weather is very hot, so I will walk mornings and evenings as I continue to advance through the desert. I will spend the heat of the day, which is near 100 degrees right now, in some type of shade, be it natural or man made. I will be in Arizona within three days or so. There will be no looking back, only forward. This is where the journey gets fun for everyone. Jeff drove out for some admin issues, and for technical support. He brought me my mini laptop and I bought a WIFI stick so we can keep this rolling. He also showed me how to post pictures on the blog and we went ahead and got it started tonight. There are several pictures now posted and many more to come. I am very excited and motivated to get going, so stay with us, and hold on because its going to be a wild trip. Please understand that nothing will stop us. Thanks for being a part of day fifteen, sixteen and seventeen.
*Mackenzie always called me Daddy until the day she left us. Not Dad, but Daddy, what I would give to hear that angelic voice say it one more time. She occasionally called me Pops, when she was in one of her funny moods and a couple of times she called me Fahja after the Austin Powers movies came out, but I beamed with pride and would immediately melt EVERY TIME that she said Daddy. Never wanted to be called anything else.