Looping, checking fields for zero-length

I've created an Access table with, among other fields, a set of numbered text fields.  Follow1, Follow2, Follow3, etc., all the way to Follow10.  They're non-required, and have no default value.

Now what I need to do is loop through each field and display the contents of each field, but first I need to check to make sure it's not empty.  When the loop finds the first empty field, it ends and no more code is executed.

I'm having difficulty with the looping logic, though.  As it stands now, the script will only execute the if-then code representing a non-empty field, meaning it's not recognizing the empty fields as actually being empty.  The script is attempting to display 5 fields each time, regardless of whether there is content or not.  If all the text fields are blank, it will display 5 line breaks.  I don't know why this is happening.

The way I've set it up is through an array declaration at the beginning, with each element matched up with the corresponding text field.  I then use a for-next loop to run through the array and check each element to make sure it's not empty. 

Here's the Array declaration:

<%
Query = "SELECT * FROM itemlog WHERE num = " & Request("num")
Set DataConn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
DataConn.Open "p2k2"
Set RSlist = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.recordset")
RSlist.Open Query,DataConn,1,2
exist = "true"
Dim thenotes(10)
  thenotes(0) = RSlist("follow1")
  thenotes(1) = RSlist("follow2")
  thenotes(2) = RSlist("follow3")
  thenotes(3) = RSlist("follow4")
  thenotes(4) = RSlist("follow5")
  thenotes(5) = RSlist("follow6")
  thenotes(6) = RSlist("follow7")
  thenotes(7) = RSlist("follow8")
  thenotes(8) = RSlist("follow9")
  thenotes(9) = RSlist("follow10")

%>

And here's the loop:

<%Do Until exist = "false" Or RSlist.EOF  
   For i = 0 to 9                         
     if thenotes(i) = "" then             
       exist = "false"                    
     else                                 
       Response.Write thenotes(i)         
       Response.Write "<BR><BR>"
       i = i+1                            
     End If                               
   Next                                   
RSlist.Movenext                           
Loop%>                                    

Any ideas?  Any/all help is appreciated.

Thanks for the reply, Flamewave, but unfortunately the problem is still occurring.  Each time this script runs, it executes this

     else                                 
       Response.Write thenotes(i)         
       Response.Write "<BR><BR>" 

5 times.  I've no idea why only 5 times, but that's what is happening.  It's just simply not seeing the fields as being blank.

Any other ideas?

Thank you MorningZ.  That seems to have fixed the problem.  I appreciate the help!

To clarify what it is I'm trying to do, I'm setting up a generic work-order system for a group of coworkers.  They just want to be able to assign jobs to each other, add notes to/for open assignments, update the notes, etc.  They said they'd need no more than 5 fields for notes, but I gave them 10 just in case.

This particular code is from the script that displays the notes that have been entered for a given assignment.  I put the elements into an array (noticed you were curious why I did this) so that it would be easier to step through each one in a for loop to check for existing or null values.  At least, that was my thinking.  But I'd be interested to know if you have any ideas on how I could've accomplished this more efficiently.  :)