I packed up my things and when straight to the airport
and caught a red eye flight to Kansas City, Missouri.
Then it was a quick drive over to the hospital where my dad was staying.

When I got there it was about 4 in the morning thanks to the time zones.
The doctors would't let me into his hospital room until at least 8 O'Clock,
so I took a well needed nap in the waiting room.

I was awaken by my mom, who had slept in dad's room.
From the look on her face I knew dad was in rough shape.
We exchange hugs before she brought me in to see him.
And like I expected, he looked pretty bad from what I could tell.

Then the doctor came in. "Well, Mr. Newton had a Ischemic stroke.
Luckily no paralyzation but he will have some significant memory loss.
But the good news is that most of it can be regained over time.
I would guess it will take at least 9-12 months for him to fully recovery."

So, at least my dad was going to make it through.
But with my parent's income depending on the family farm,
I was going to have to move back home from California to help them.

This meant I would have to part ways with Kyle and Bissell for the year.
I surely don't want to pass up on professional cycling for yet another season...

But what other choice do I have?

After evaluating my options I quickly realized my first two ideas wouldn't work.
I first thought I could move my parents out to Los Angeles with me,
but (a.) I didn't have enough money to support them on my own and
(b.) we weren't all going to fit in my one room apartment I was still renting.

My second thought was to go back to LA and continue racing
and just send my check back to my parents so they could
keep the farm ready until my dad was back to normal.
But again I didn't make enough money for that to be a valid option.

And then it hit me. I needed to do something in between option 1 and 2.
If I stayed home for 4-5 months I could help plant the corn for the summer,
which is really the only thing I needed to do as my mom could handle the rest,
then I would be able to race from about May to September before
I was needed again to harvest the corn around October.

Not sure Bissell would like that at all considering I signed as a basic helper,
but it really was my only choice if I wanted to race professionally this season.

So, tomorrow I will called Bissell's DS Glen Mitchell to tell him what is going on
and see if we could work something out so I can still race and help my family.

Well, as you can imagine our DS wasn't happy with this news I brought him.
And in a joking manner even asked if I had some kind of curse.
Which I didn't really deny as I'm starting to think us Newton's have terrible luck.

We talked on the phone for over two hours trying to sort out my situation.
With the season about to start he didn't want to release me from my contract
because they wouldn't have enough time to replace me, or so he said.
So luckily for me, Bissell was still willing to let me ride even with a half season.

The next part of the conversation was trying to make a schedule that
made sense and would fit into between my May and September boundary.
This is what we came up with, 5 races all here in the United States.



My season would start with a trip back to California to be reunited with Kyle,
followed up with almost a two month break to train with the team in California.
Then I will get the honor to race in USA RR in Tennessee, as a helper though.
After that it's another month off so I will go back home to work on the farm.
And then it's my key month in August with Elk Grove, Utah and USAPCC,
just like we had planned before my dad had his stroke.

In total just 25 race days but I'm so glad I will still get to race this season!