A walk to inspire

BATON ROUGE, La (NBC33) – Bill and Cynthia Steele never imagined that their son, Will Steele, would fall victim to an extremely rare form of cancer.

“Originally he was told that he would 18 months to live,” Bill Steele said when explaining his son’s disease. “It’s a death sentence. With this particular cancer, there's no protocol. No one survives long enough to establish a protocol. The longest survival rate has been five years and there's no cure for it.”

Will Steele is only 34-years old and he's married with three children. Now' he's fighting for his life and about to undergo a very serious surgery in Houston. It’s scheduled to happen within the next month.

“He told me I didn't know how hard this was going to be,” Bill continued. “This surgery is extreme. It will take him six months to get back up on his feet.”

His father wanted to do something special to inspire Will to keep going.

“I told him I'd come up with something that would be just as difficult. I'm not sure I did that, but I told him I'd walk to Houston and meet him there a couple of days before his surgery.

“They're going to fire a gun and I'm leaving,” he added.

The journey will take roughly 20 days to complete, but Bill is up for the challenge. He’s been walking 20 miles everyday for the past 8 weeks.

“It takes you all the way to MD Anderson.”

Giving hope to his son, and others like him.

“People come to me and say I'd like to walk with you for a few hours, I'm a cancer survivor,” he said. “Amazingly enough if they can talk about it, it makes them feel better. I'm going to be walking 200 hours if anyone wants to come and walk, I'll lend them an ear.”

Bill leaves Baton Rouge on March 12. He will start at Catholic High School, which is where Will went to school and ran track.

You can keep up with Bill Steele’s Journey by clicking here [2].