By Audrey Dodgen/Staff Writer

A year ago thoughts of suicide plagued Dennis Kinch. Choosing not to succumb to the darkness, Kinch began a journey.

Fifteen years ago, Kinch began experiencing chronic lower back pain. In 2000, that pain spread to his middle back and became so debilitating he was forced to undergo surgery after surgery, each followed by extensive rehabilitation, all to no avail. In 2004, he was diagnosed with Paget’s Disease and ankylosing spondylitis, two degenerative diseases. He said it was then that thoughts of suicide filled his mind.

“My doctors told me they had never seen a Paget’s patient who could walk,” Kinch said.

Paget’s patients typically suffer from chronic back pain, which radiates to the hips and legs, making walking virtually impossible.

On Wednesday Kinch walked through El Reno, 824 miles into a 2,400-mile journey.

Kinch left Chicago Sept. 19 on a walk sponsored by the National Pain Foundation. He is following Route 66 as it traverses the Midwest and will end his journey in Los Angeles in early June.

The journey is scheduled in segments, with scheduled stops every three or four days for Kinch to visit with pain patients in towns on his way.

“I want to be able to give these people hope. I’ve been at the very bottom of the spiral, and I found a way to come out of it,” he said.

Kinch began walking as a form of therapy in 2003.

“I was doing pool therapy and learned how to walk properly, so I could do it without hurting myself,” he said.

“Then I started walking around my couch. I made kind of an Olympics out of it. I walked around and around, until I had enough strength to walk upstairs, then all around the house. I just kept walking.”

While working with doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Kinch found himself enrolled in a full-service pain clinic. In addition to physical and occupational therapy, he received psychological counseling. He credits the program for helping him learn to effectively manage his pain.

“I got all the way down to the very lowest point of the spiral in the cycle of pain, and then I started coming back up. You have to stop focusing on what you don’t have and look at what you do have,” he said.

“Doctors were telling me it was a miracle that I could walk, but I wasn’t acting like a miracle. I was acting like a pain patient. I knew then that I had to help save other people from the despair of chronic pain.”

To fulfill that mission, Kinch embarked on a 23-day walk from Boston to Washing-ton, D.C. The walk was trying, both physically and financially, but Kinch said completing the journey proved how much a person with chronic pain could accomplish.

“It took me six weeks to recover from it. I wasn’t sure I ever would. But once I got better, I was ready to do something even bigger,” he said.

Kinch contacted the National Pain Foundation, a non-profit aimed at educating pain sufferers about their treatment options.

“They said they’d sponsor me in a long walk, or a series of smaller walks. I wanted to do the whole thing,” he said.

Kinch carries his own supplies with him, first in a luggage cart, and now in a wheelbarrow. The 125-pound kit is tied to him and he pulls it while he walks.

The most harrowing part of the journey, he said, is when he has to cross bridges while traffic is on the road.

“There isn’t very much room for me to get out of the way and the cars may be going 60 or 70 miles an hour as they go by. If the cart hits a rock or a bump, it can tip, and there is the possibility it will tip into traffic, and since it’s tied to me, it could take me with it,” he said.

He has been in two tornadoes, seen light snowfall and heavy rains and has endured bitter cold. Overall, he said, the weather has been mostly cooperative.

“All of that is nothing compared to the amazing people I’m meeting,” he said.

Kinch said he finds himself amazed at the generosity of the people he meets in the heartland. He has received money to donate to the NPF, food and other goods.

“One man came by and gave me money. Then he came back by and handed me a pair of gloves he had been heating on his radiator. Then he gave me two more pair of gloves, for down the road. Then he came by again and gave me his business card and told me to call him if I needed anything,” he said.

“I meet so many people like that, it’s inspiring.”

Kinch, who is covering between 20 and 30 miles a day, will spend Christmas Day in Clinton, serving a Christmas meal at the Mission House before resuming his westward push.

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