Hello again all you Angels,
The start of day 2 found nearly everyone bundled up trying to stay warm. We went and had breakfast around 5:30. Surprisingly the food was pretty good, all the meals were. I can't brag on the crews enough, the jobs that they did, taking care of all the walkers, feeding them, medicating them, making sure they were safe during the walks. Without the 350 different crew members, the walkers would not be able to walk. I honestly think their jobs might have been harder than doing the walk.
After breakfast I went to the Medical Tent and had one of the physical therapists take a look at my knee. He wrapped it real good, and then I put my brace on over it for added support. My tent mate went and had his one blister lanced and then put "new skin" on in and bandaged it. Then it was back over to the main road leading out of camp. We had to wait for daylight before they would let us start walking for safety reasons. We finally were allowed to start our second day of walking and it was a beautiful morning. Coming up the road out of camp, we turned right and started walking down Peachtree Ind. God painted a beautiful picture for us to see starting out, a beautiful clear blue sky, and you could see these beautiful fog banks down low, off to the right,
As we were approaching the first pit stop of the day, I caught up with one of the walkers that became one of my greatest inspirations for the weekend. I ran into her several more times during the remaining two days, and she always had a big smile on her face. The second day had several hills on the walk and the third day was really tough for hills. They seemed to have saved the biggest and the longest hills for the third day of walking, when everyone was their tiredest. This young lady made every hill, on her on, and was smiling at the top of every one of them. She was rolling herself along in a wheelchair.
Continuing down Peachtree, the walkers could be seen as far back as you could see. There were supporters out cheering us on this second day also. The young kids were adorable. They all seemed to be holding candy or gum or tootsie pops to give to the walkers. You didn't want to hurt any of their feelings, so everyone would take something from each one of them. You couldn't just take something from one and not the other, you didn't want to hurt their feelings,
so all the walkers had their fill of junk food and candy over the weekend.
We made it to lunch finally, and it was time for some more care of the feet and knee. I felt like I was getting a hot spot on the ball of my right foot, that could turn into a blister, so I put some BodyGlide on when I changed my socks. That's one of the things all walkers do, change their socks at lunch time. It's amazing how good a clean pair of dry socks can feel. I also visited the med crew again. I told the therapist about my knee and how it had kept me up most of the previous night. He told me he had something that he thought would help me out. It was a gel called BioFreeze. Rubbed some on my knee and bandaged it up again, and gave me about 6 packages of the stuff. It was amazing stuff. My knee felt "cool" and the pain eased significantly. I used the BioFreeze through the rest of the walk and put it on my knee Saturday night. It worked wonders. I think I only woke up twice Saturday night, and that was because I had to visit the "potties". You can't believe how many times walkers visit those things in the course of three days. LOL You are taking in so much fluid to stay hydrated while you are walking. That's one of the 3-day mottos.......Drink Drink Drink....Pee Pee Pee.....We don't want no IV.
A sign we ran across after lunch when we continued our walk said "There Is No Mistake So Great As The Mistake Of Not Going On...William Blake". There was always something to inspire you to keep going, even if there were no people around.
But once again, the biggest inspirations came from the crowds along the way, and especially the younger ones. All I could think of was, I'm doing this, and will keep doing it so long as I'm able, so that we can find a cure and these young girls will never have to worry about losing their mother to cancer, and that hopefully when they grow up, breast cancer will be a thing of the past.
And then right after having had that thought, I'm walking along, closing up on a single walker alone, a young lady that was walking by herself, and looking like she was wearing down. As I approached her, I reached out and placed my hand on her back, and asked her how she was doing. She told me she wasn't sure whether she was going to get through this or not. So I told her, Hey, I'll walk along with you for awhile. We can do this together. Then she told me her story. She was 32, had two children, divorced, and had decided to do the walk. Two weeks before the walk she said she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and that she was scared to death and that she didn't think she was going to be able to get through this alone. All I could do was tell her to look around, she definitely was not alone. She had thousand of supporters walking with her. We walked and talked together for some time, and when we finally parted I gave her my email address and told her I was always available to help her in anyway I can. Just one more of the hundreds of stories I have heard in the past 10 months. How can one not change after going through all of this.
The first thing I did when I got back to camp the second day was to visit the "coolest" spot in camp. You soak your feet in ice for about 5 minutes, if you can stand it that long. First it's a shock, then it hurts for awhile and then they become numb. After you take them out and dry them off, about 5 minutes later it's like you have a new pair of feet. They felt wonderful.
After supper we headed for the showers. These were set up in trailer trucks. Each truck contained something like 16 shower stalls with curtains along one side of the truck, and a bench along the other side of the truck. Since there were far more women walking than men, there were 4 full size trucks for women and then there was one that was split in half. One end was for the men and the other was for the women, each containing like 8 stalls. Yes, there was a wall dividing the halves. 
Then there was one truck designated for survivors only, which provided a little more privacy for each of the showers. It was amazing that these showers would start being used and have waiting lines from around 5 or 6 when the first walkers would get back to camp, up until 9:00. And every shower had all the hot water you could want. How they managed that I don't know. The entire operation is one impressing feat.
The team and Joyce had all made plans to meet at the dining tent for the finals for the 3-Day's version of "So you think you have talent". We met up with Hal and Donna there also. Donna walked last year and Hal was on the tent and gear crew. This year Donna crewed with Joyce on "check in" and Hal walked with me.
The winners of the talent show was this gentlemen, who was part of the safety Moto Crew, and his 8 backup "guitar players" who were female walkers. And I found out that he is a survivor himself. One of the 1,720 men that are diagnosed each year, approximately 100 to 1 ratio with the number of women that are diagnosed. Not only is he a survivor, but a 3 generation one. His father and his grandfather both had breast cancer.
After the talent show was over, we took a minute to take a couple more pictures outside the huge dining tent and then it was off to bed to try and rest up for the final day. We took one of the team standing in front of this large inflatable that a slogan on it that I love..."WE'RE TOO INSPIRED to feel tired".
There you have day two. I'm going to put day three in another email.
-- Michael