The Longest Walk

They found the tumor at the base of my brain in July 2013.

Prior to that I had terrible neck pain for months leading to sleepless nights and angry days.  I was a walking and talking embodiment of a Pain in the Neck to everyone around me. I went to the doctor who said rest and pain killers.  Went back after a month and he said rest and anti inflammatory meds.  Went back after another month and he said lets get a scan.

I walked into the office of my primary doctor at the hospital for the first time July 10th and was told the news… Stage II Inoperable, Chemo, aggressive treatment, Brain and Spine.. They were just words as my vision clouded down to a tunnel. The walk to the car from his office was perhaps 2 blocks but it felt like 1000 miles. I was employed with a small tech start-up at the time and did not have  health insurance. Obamacare wasn’t a thing yet so with my savings I embarked on a treatment plan that was painful tiring and draining both physically and financially.

It is now 2015, I am the not so proud owner of massive medical debt, a brain tumor that is slowly eating me, and about 2 years of time left on the planet.

But dear readers don’t mourn for me, I have decided to go out on my own terms.  I want some time to get to know me before I go, life has been so hectic and so pointless up until somebody put a time limit on it for me.  I will be walking my own crucible from Georgia to Maine starting in February of 2015.

I have hiked quite a bit in my time on the earth even hiked a good portion of the AT including the Abol Slide trail up to the top of Katahdin.  I am currently not in great shape my weight has ballooned to 245lbs, post treatment life has not been kind.  I have limited resources in fact I will have a total of $2500 available to me at the time I start hiking.  The odds are stacked against me from the get go but I honestly have nowhere else to go nor would I want to do anything else.

I will probably have to lean on others along the way and hope for the kindness of strangers to pull me through. Call it naive or stupid or idealistic but I hope to find the good in this world before I leave it.

This blog will not be filled with pictures or might not even be very interesting, but it will be a documentation of my last days and I hope to make it a journal that others with No hope can look at and say One More Day..

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