This time, the Desert Dogs set out to find those elusive mummies they’ve heard about in the past (see the first El Paso episode). But the spirits of the dead decide to thwart their efforts. Ben, the Desert Dog website’s blogger, fell seriously ill as the Dogs get closer to their rendezvous.

Also in this episode, the Desert Dog’s Bug Man Marty Lewis finds a hive of killer bees, sits right next to them and talks about them too. He finds another insect, but that will be in the video found at the Desert Dog website, www.therealdesertdogs.com.

Archaeological Site Steward Joe Perry runs across numerous artifacts, even what may be a Native American burial, complete with beads, a broken metate, and maybe even some bone.

Music used with permission from Petroleum (Warner Music Group, the owners of Metallica’s music, started cracking down on us).  But I think we passed the dispute process, because they stopped muting our videos.  Gotta love fair use!

I knew I needed to wake someone up to see if they might have some Tylenol of something to help my condition.  It was very dark in the tent so I reached over and woke up Dustin and asked him if I he had any medicine.  I told him how I was feeling and he was able to dig up some acetaminophen pills.  I took the pills, drank some water urinated and went back to sleep.

When I woke up I felt a little better.  I still had some soarness in my throat and had body aches all around.  After awhile everyone got up and we began to get prepared for the day.  I ate breakfast and drank some instant coffee.

I took this new kind of black energy pill along with the coffee in hopes that the stimulants would help me cope with the symptoms for the long hike.  I thought if I hike constant and keep up a sweat, maybe I would sweat it all out.  What a dumb idea that turned out to be.

As we started hiking my fever started to kick in right away along with worse body aches.  I just toughed it out for awhile and then ended up taking more acetaminophen to help null the fever.  It helped a little as we continued down the valley in search for more chippings.

After awhile I began to feel slightly paranoid.  It just came on out of no where.  I started feeling like something was wrong with everything.  It progressed rather quickly until I started thinking about weird scenarios of situations happening that ultimately ended in me getting hurt.  At the same time my body aches increased along with throat pain.

Eventually our group split up and we started on our treck up Black Mountain as planned.  The paranoia stayed constant and was eventully joined by anxiety.  After awhile of mental horror I ended up pulling Andy aside and I explained to him what was happening.  We spoke breifly about it and we both agreed that it was probably temporary and would go away after awhile.

It didn’t.  The problem got worse and worse.  I started feeling so paranoid about every single thought that passed through my mind.  I was ever afraid to tell them how I felt.  I was afraid that I might die out there and that people were going to think I was a loser.

I finally told them in so many words that it was an emergency and that i may need to go to a hospital.  I told them that maybe if I just got back to the camp and laid down for awhile I would be ok.  We eventually got back to the camp but had to scale a decent size mountain to get there.  I remember being so exhuasted and soar all over my body.  It felt so horrible!

I made my way to Dustin’s truck and blacked out for about 30 minutes.  I was awaken by Andy and Dustin who checked my forehead and decided to leave.  They packed up the gear and we left.  We stopped at a local store and they bought me some tylenol which I took and started feeling better right away.  We ate and eventually made it home around 7:30pm.  When I got back I showered and went to sleep at about 8:30pm.  I woke up at 1am, took some Nyquil, drank some water and passed back out until about 8:30am.

I have been just resting all this week and right now I feel like I am just about well.  My throat still feels a little puffy but I think I am almost 100% again.  I am just so glad the paranoia and anxiety are gone….

UPDATE: Looking back at that situation I think I might of had a full on panic attack.  I have never felt that way before.