The Great Experiment- Interesting Initial Information

I have been hearing from a few of you each day wondering how my body and mind are handling our first revival on the road since the brainstem stroke at the end of December. I do not blame you for your curiosity, I am a little curious too.

Actually, I am a lot curious. As I have explained before, this whole thing is about getting into our regular routine for a couple of months and discovering the result.

With that said, it is too early to tell the final result, but this is some interesting initial information. Week by week we aim to assess our progress and look for clues. I am not sure whether I am Sherlock or Shaggy, but I am looking for clues at the scene of the crime. 

Number one, the long trip here took a toll on me, as we knew it probably would. We drove it over three days and I am sure that helped. I am very thankful we did not begin revival the next morning. Sometimes I get things right. 

We will continue to plan shorter travel days and a day or more of rest after travel. Hopefully and prayerfully I will improve in that aspect. 

Next, is my endurance preaching several services strung together and being social and taking care of the bus and my family. Thankfully, the services have been great and the bus has required little attention so I have been able to enjoy the preaching without much strain of daytime activity.

Not all weeks will be like that, so I am going to enjoy every week that is. By God’s grace, we will continue to expect great revivals, low levels of trouble and time to rest. 

I have been spent physically at the end of each night and that is what we expected. I surmise that will also improve some along the way. We will continue to build in rest until we get there. 

I have experienced trouble in one area that we did not foresee. All three of us have fall allergies that normally come on strong in late August and this year they came with a vengeance. However, my voice responded in a way it never has before. 

Normally, during even horrible allergy season, I will have some weakness in my voice but I can warm it up during the day and be very close to full strength each night. This week, my voice has been rough enough to be unpleasant to the ear. 

Perhaps my vocal cords being partially numb on the right side has caused this. It may be that my voice will respond to allergies in a completely different way than they have in the past because of this. I will run that by my speech therapists when we return home.

Thankfully, my voice was stronger during the preaching the final night. Praise God! Three days without singing and preaching should help it.

We are purposely resting Thursday and Friday, traveling less than 90 minutes Saturday and then taking part in an outdoor camp meeting all next week. I am supposed to preach on Sunday night but only help with singing and worship the rest of the nights.

Kelly Jo has taken so much on her plate to help me to be able to do this. I could not do it without her. We also had help getting sound equipment in place and back into the bus and that is a huge relief to both of us. 

Thank you very much for praying for us during this adventure in revivals. As I said, it remains to be seen what the final results will bring, but the way the Lord has helped people this week really makes every effort worthwhile. That is most certainly Interesting Initial Information.

May God bless you, friends. 

Davy 

Therapist, Fruit And The Green Machine

Thank you for the super great response on our Comprehensive Update Mile Marker Tuesday. We received so many kind comments, texts and emails. We appreciate your kindness, concerns, well wishes and prayers. 

Many of you asked me to keep you updated on our September/October experiment and I will try to do that. 

We are regularly asked if we still have the Green Machine and the answer is, Yes. We purchased this 2006 Scion Xb in May 2012 and it has served us faithfully. I snapped a picture of it this week parked near the tent trailer. I should probably sell both of them. 

It is nice to have the BoggsMobile back in its place. KJo has been working hard to get it packed and loaded for the road. It is coming together. 

I mentioned our wonderful therapists in Tuesday’s Mile Marker and how precious they are to us. We visited the Therapy floor on Tuesday morning with a fruit tray. We have taken pizza a couple times and donuts a few times so we tried a healthier option. 

We were able to visit with a few of them but we only took one picture.🫣 This is KJo with Tracy a Speech Therapist. 

Tracy has been so encouraging and she was at it again on Tuesday. I think she and the other therapists are nearly as excited as we are for us to go out and preach a few weeks of revivals. 

We are determined to attempt this test and it is very helpful for them be so encouraging. May God bless them for their optimism and positivity. It is comforting to us. 

We saw our Neurologist last week and we mentioned our plans to her as well. She was hopeful and reassuring too. 👍🏽

Thank you for dropping in today. 

Davy

A Comprehensive Update

I thought about putting this update on video and posting it on our YouTube channel, but I decided against it for now. This is a much more personal space and more comfortable space. If you know someone that is interested in this information, you can send them a link.

As promised in a recent Mile Marker, I have prepared for you a comprehensive update on where we find ourselves now and what our plans are for the next few months. First, let me take a moment to rehearse where we came from the last several months. 

As we were planning to leave home on December 29 for our 2024 revivals, I suffered a brainstem stroke while loading the bus. The initial symptoms were extreme dizziness, numbness in my right arm and leg and I lost my ability to swallow at all. 

With the help of my brother Steve and Kelly Jo, I made it outside of the barn and we made the decision to go to the hospital. 

As the dust began to settle later that day I realized my eyes were affected as well and the best way to keep the dizziness at bay was to keep one eye closed. At first, we all hoped the symptoms would subside and I would be back on the road in a few days.

A few days in ICU with no improvement and those initial hopes began to dissipate. The biggest struggle those first few weeks was that I could not swallow one drop of anything. The doctors, nurses and therapists would ask me what my number one recovery goal was and I would say I want to drink a cold glass of water. 

Nothing else mattered at the time. 

On the seventh day of hospitalization, they moved me to inpatient rehab and the next day they began 10 days of intensive rehab. Every therapist there helped me tremendously, with a few of them making lasting and amazing impacts on our lives. 

Despite the hard work of my speech therapist, I could not learn to swallow. After two weeks they informed me that statistically, it looked like I would be in for the long-haul with learning to swallow. They informed me months later that they wondered if I would ever swallow again. 

On the 17th day after the stroke, by God’s grace, I took my first swallow of water on Sunday morning. It was miraculous! Everyone that came to my room to see me swallow acknowledged the divine intervention.

From that moment on, when they asked me my number one recovery goal I said, I wanna go back to work preaching revivals again. 🙌🏽🙌🏽 It turns out that swallowing was easier than the final goal. Ugh!

I was already scheduled to go home the next day and then began the long road to swallow good enough to have the feeding tube removed. I also began about 2 1/2 months of additional outpatient therapy and extensive therapy at home. 

I went from a wheelchair to walking with a walker and later progressed to walking with a walking stick. Therapists were also working to improve my motor skills, my swallowing and my voice quality.

The occupational therapist put me through a series of cognitive and physical tests to make sure I could drive and the neurologist approved. I am thankful for that. It was a really big help and boosted me quite a bit. 

The outpatient therapists were amazing and life-changing for us just like the inpatient therapists. I have done my best to show my gratitude and we will never forget their kindness to us. 

All these months later, the base problem, the numbness on the right half of my body still remains. We are praying for God to remove that numbness. The neurologists gave us hope for this through a process called Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered; neuroplasticity, then, is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new neurons and building new networks. LINK

We do hope for that and we have been praying for that. But lately, I have also been praying that God would restore that small place in my brain stem that is damaged from lack of blood flow as a result of the small clot that caused the stroke. That would be a notable miracle because it is impossible. It is impossible but not for God!

God is able to heal me either way or in a way that I have never thought about. I will welcome it and praise him for it no matter what. In fact, we have determined to praise him healing or not because He is God, He is great and He is good. 

In the meantime, Kelly and I have been learning to live with the limitations that I have. The numbness on my right half affects me mainly in three ways; balance, swallowing and vocals. 

My balance is unreliable because of the numbness, but I will keep walking toward heaven. I cannot swallow all things, so I eat things I can swallow. I cannot sing like I used to sing so I sing what I can, when I can, with all the joy I can.

Also, I cannot travel like I used to so I am traveling the best I can, when I can and trying to enjoy every moment of it. The weariness from the brain is a tiredness that is off the scale, especially when I travel.

I have no complaints, I have no desire to register a complaint, I am trying to explain why the travel and normal nightly revival has seemed impossible. We are not sure if I can do this at this point, but we are ready to try. 

Officially. we have set September 1 to resume our revival schedule. I plan to preach our scheduled September and October revivals and then make our way back home. If all goes according to plan, we will preach revivals in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma and possibly Kansas.

We are going to try to be very diligent to keep our travel days as short as possible. There may be other things that bring on fatigue that we learn about, but we know traveling is the hardest thing so far. We will try to minimize that. 

For the most part, we have determined that doing our West Coast tour in late October, November and December is not feasible or wise at this time. 

We will take the information we learn in September and October, put it into our computers/brains, pray about it, seek counsel from our mentors and make a decision on how to proceed with our schedule for 2025.

I hope that makes sense. To quote my friend, Pastor Barry Gautreaux, It makes sense when I say to it myself.

May I say one more thing? We have survived and thrived to this point in this crisis because God stood by us and His people stood by us. On our own, we would have failed. On our own, we could have wallowed in depression and defeat. On our own, we would have crashed and burned financially, emotionally and spiritually.

We are still standing as a family and as individuals because of God‘s grace and God’s people’s graciousness. We give God glory and we give you, God‘s people, our heartfelt gratitude. Thank you!❤️❤️

We are excited to see where we go from here. Would you please continue to pray for us? Thank you for joining us today.

Davy 

I'll Be Yawn Gone

Boy howdy! Do I have an interesting subject for you today. I imagine you will be yawning before you finish this Mile Marker.

I mentioned on February 21 that I had a few strange side effects lingering from the stroke in December. 

I did not sneeze for 13 days. Finally, one morning while still in in-patient rehab I sneezed. I still do not sneeze every morning like I used to, only a few times a week at most.

I also noticed that I did not dream at all after the stroke. It was 25 nights before I had a dream and I have always been a vivid and near constant dreamer. I seem to be back to normal in that respect. 

My sleep habits have been worse than ever since the stroke. I have never been a really good sleeper but there are some nights I hardly sleep at all and when I do it’s usually no more than four or five fitful hours with waking periods in between. 

I have always yawned a lot. It was sometimes embarrassing how much I yawned and often I yawned when I should have been wide awake and paying attention. 

After the stroke I have not yawned normally at all. 

On April 11, over three months post stroke, I was sitting in a chair about 5 AM reading when I felt a big yawn coming on. I involuntarily opened my mouth wide and the yawn was over in less than 1/2 second. I was disappointed but it was a start.

Later that week I had the exact same experience about five times one morning. A big yawn would feel like it was coming on and then nothing.

Unfortunately, the yawns did not build from there but stopped again. Last Friday, May 31 my mouth opened involuntarily and I began to yawn that maybe lasted probably one full second and then was over quickly. 

I have had nothing since then. We have asked several doctors, therapists and even the neurologist about this and they seem to be as clueless as us. Nobody has offered any explanation at all. 

I can live without yawning, but it is vastly different than before. It is not something that I have prayed about, I have much bigger issues to pray about.😳🤪

Have you yawned yet while reading this?

Davy

Moving On And Praising God!

I felt like my head was a little mixed up when I realized last night that today is Friday already. Wow! Where did this week go? It seems like it was only yesterday when we woke up in London Kentucky on Monday morning.

In the same vein, we are Already more than halfway through May, the fifth month of 2024. That means it has been more than 4 1/2 months since I had a stroke on December 29. In some ways, that is unbelievable. 

They say that time flies when you are having fun but I reckon time flies whether you are having fun or not. 😂 I have felt like time has been dragging through many long days and many long nights this year only to look up and realize we are zooming through 2024 like crazy. 

I sure would like to have some date for the end of this current difficulty, but maybe the days will continue to fly and we will be on the other side of this before we know it. 👍🏽👍🏽

There is no doubt that God has brought us a very long way since December 29.

I could be dead

I could be paralyzed.

I could be in a care home. 

I could be on a feeding tube still.

My eyes could still be weirded out. 

I could be horribly dizzy like I was. 

I could be unable to walk and unable to use my right arm. 

And the list of “could bes” go on and on and on.

Instead, we are praising God for all the miracles he has given us. The persistent numbness which brings on the balance issues, swallowing problems and vocal weaknesses, do not prevent me from giving God glory for what he has done. Hallelujah!🙌🏽🙌🏽

Thank you Lord for bringing me and my family through the last 4 1/2 months and thank you for what you are gonna do in the next few days and in the next 4 1/2 months.

Praise God, He has been very good to us. You, dear friends, have been good to hold up our needs before God and we appreciate that too. May God bless you for it. 

Thank you for stopping in today.

Davy

A Short Update

I want to take a moment to give you a little update on my shingles saga. I have always said that I am allergic to pain and this has been another chance to prove that pain hurts me.

The pain from Thursday through Tuesday was almost more than I could bear and the peak was probably on Saturday. I know that several of you were praying for me and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that.

Wednesday the pain was constant pretty much all day long and if that’s the only pain I had experienced from shingles I would have concluded that shingles were extremely painful. However, it was not as bad as a previous six days and I am very thankful for that.

This morning the pain seems pretty much equal to Wednesday but may be a little less. I will know more as the day goes forward and as we prepare for the weekend.

I was not able to keep my scheduled appointment to preach this past Sunday, but I am hopeful to be more alive from this point forward. Thank you again for praying for us not only the last few days but the way that many of you have bombarded Heaven for us the last few months.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Davy

Test Results-Can We Travel Video

We have been testing how I manage traveling and preaching. Can we do it? What are the test results?

Well, the results are in. Much of the testing went very well, but we have found that the actual traveling is a little out of my reach just yet. We are adjusting our plans and continuing to move forward as much as possible. I try to explain it in the video above.

Thank you for reading and watching today.

Davy

A Tribute to The Real Stars Of Recovery

This Mile Marker is a heartfelt tribute to a few special individuals that we love. I would appreciate if you take a moment to read it and look at the pictures of these beautiful people. 

KJo and I are still very much in the process of recovery from the stroke I suffered on December 29, 2023. I include Kelly Jo in that sentence because she has worked as hard and probably much harder than I have in this course of recovery.

She has diligently stayed by my side since the first moment and completed absolutely every task that needed to be done and found even more to do. I do not understand how people can recover without dependable and faithful people to help them.

I am praising God for my dear wife standing beside me, walking with me and propping me up for the last 90 days.

Speaking of 90 days, yesterday was the 90th day since the stroke. As one friend said to me yesterday, on the one hand, it is hard to believe it has been that long and on the other hand it seems like an eternity since that dreadful day. 

It is quite a Mile Marker for us and we are so thankful that God has brought us to this point without more difficulty than we have had. The personnel in Neurology and ICU were very concerned about subsequent strokes in the beginning and we are thankful God kept me. 

This road of recovery is not over, but God has placed people in our path all along the way to encourage us, teach us and help us. We are sure He will continue. 

Much of the help that we have received has come in the form of the therapists at Atrium Hospital in Middletown, Ohio. I had a lot of therapy.

I had at least 6 sessions of therapy while in the ICU unit. 

I had 33 one hour long sessions of therapy over 11 days as part of inpatient therapy. 

I had 52 one hour long sessions of therapy between January 19 and March 22 as part of outpatient therapy. Those sessions involved 18 days of therapy. 

In total, we had somewhere around 90 hours of therapy. I am not sure the exact length because the 6 sessions in the ICU unit may not have always been an hour, but all the other 85 sessions were an hour in length. 

I had 28 sessions of occupational therapy. 

I had 31 sessions of physical therapy. 

I had 32 sessions of speech therapy.

The therapist involved in all those hours of therapy, literally changed my life. I was determined to improve as much as possible, but I could not do it without somebody teaching me, encouraging me and even pushing me beyond my limitations.

I wish you could meet all of these people, but at least I can show you some pictures of some of them. I did not even think to take pictures in the first few weeks, there was just too much going on. So for some of the therapists I have no pictures. 

However, I did get a few pictures.

The speech therapist who helped me during the inpatient and ICU time was Katie. She is pictured below on my last day of inpatient therapy. 

I had taken my first swallow of water the day before and we had been crying and rejoicing together right before this picture was taken. And she had just given me my first small bites of food. 

Katie worked so diligently during those first 18 days to help me swallow. I will never forget her commitment and dedication to helping me. She first came into the ICU less than 48 hours after the stroke.

I am still struggling to swallow some things, but I believe I am swallowing today because of her devotion to her job and to me as a patient. Katie Rocks!

Charlotte was my main inpatient physical therapist. 

She worked with me on using the wheelchair, the walker and the basics of balance and walking. I called her a drill sergeant and she lived up to the name. I am very thankful for those early sessions when she pushed me to try again and again. 

Because I went home with a feeding tube, we were assigned a home health nurse. Once I was evaluated our nurse came once or twice a week until the feeding tube was removed.

Her name was Lauren and she was a tremendous help medically and emotionally to us. She answered all of our questions and still would. She was very kind and thoughtful. 

My outpatient physical therapist, for most sessions, was Emma. Each and every outpatient physical therapist helped me tremendously, but Emma seemed to pour so much emotion and dedication into my therapy. 

She pushed me hard and I teased her constantly about it, but I never felt unsafe in her hands, even when I knew she was asking me to go beyond my perceived ability. She was a jewel to us. 

My outpatient speech therapist was Phyllis. 

She also improved my swallowing tremendously, building on everything I had learned from Katie and expanding what I could swallow to where it is today. 

There is no way I would be eating foods that I am eating today and looking forward to eating things that I cannot eat today, without her constant encouragement and the knowledge that she poured into Kelly and I. 

Phyllis also taught me so much about using and building strength in my vocal cords. I cannot sing at the same level that I have in times past, but I am 1000 times beyond where I was when I began. 

In the days after the stroke, when I discovered I could not sing, I was heartbroken.  Singing has been such a huge part of our family, our lives and our ministry. I felt completely crushed when I realized how much voice strength and control I had lost. 

Phyllis was eager and earnest about strengthening the muscles in my throat and teaching me the techniques I would need to regain what I have lost. She was amazing. 

This process was very emotional for me and I appreciate that she gave me room to be emotional and call on God and rejoice with us when he helped us. The three of us shared many tender moments. 

She brought a keyboard in and coached us each session as Kelly would play and as we warmed up my voice. Then we would sing songs that have been important to us through the years. It was wonderful.

The inpatient occupational therapists were instrumental in helping me function in the shape I was in after the stroke. They taught me how to dress, to brush my teeth, wash my face and all the other daily functions. 

They were tremendous, but unfortunately, I did not get a picture of any of them. McKenzie was the main one while an inpatient. 

As an outpatient, my occupational therapists have been Melissa and Allison in the pictures below. 

They have both been very attentive to carefully improve my balance, the use of my hand and also in my cognitive abilities in relation to driving. They have been so patient with me.

Full use of my hand may be out of my control as long as my right side is still asleep. But they have helped me to improve the use of my hand and arm in amazing ways. I believe my right hand might be stronger than it was before the stroke. 

Kelly and I felt very close to Melissa, as we did others and we will never forget all of these people and more who helped us regain as much of our life as we could. 

On March 22 we stood in the hallway of the therapy area and cried tears as we departed from these wonderful people. There were hugs and tears all around and we will always feel they are a part of our lives. 

Honestly, it felt pretty weird not to be there the following Monday and not to be going there this morning on Friday. We will be paying them a visit as soon as we can. 

The truth is, we are able to launch out and see if I am able to travel because of them. They made it possible.

I am able to sing a little and preach a little, I am able to walk, talk and function somewhat normally because of the love and care administered to us with professionalism mixed with compassion and tenderness from these folks that God brought into our lives. 

One of these precious therapists told us that she thinks we were brought into her life for a reason. That is amazing. But it is even more true that she and all these others were brought into our lives for such a time as this.

May God bless them in their lives, families, health, vocation and in every area. Kelly and I can honestly say we love these people and all the others very much and we are so thankful for them. 

Thank you for spending some time with us today.

Davy

First Sermon Since A Stroke 80 Days Earlier, The Power of Imperfect Faith

This past Sunday was a memorable day for our family. Our pastor, Bro. Bennie Sutherland called a few days earlier and asked me to preach Sunday morning. I was apprehensive, but many were praying for me and the Lord stood by me and blessed me that morning. We are thanking God for his blessings. 

Odie recorded a very short video from the front pew and that is the only video we have from the sermon. 

It was captured on audio. I have loaded the audio onto our YouTube channel and it will go live at 8 PM Eastern tonight, Friday night, March 22. 

This is a sermon at Dryden Rd Pentecostal Church on March 17. This was my first time preaching since I suffered a brain stem stroke on December 29.

The sermon is The Power of Imperfect Faith. This is AUDIO of the sermon. 

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope you will listen to the sermon on YouTube. The whole video is less than 35 minutes.

Have a super great day.

Davy

Change Already? Yep!

Wow! Things sure change fast around here.😍 This was the first major paragraph in yesterday's Mile Marker.

If nothing changes, Speech therapy and Occupational therapy will end on Wednesday, March 27 IF not before. Physical therapy will pause on March 27 for a few weeks. I will go back toward the third week of April and they will evaluate how I am doing at that point.

The only accurate part of that paragraph was three little words,  IF not before. Lol! Everything changed in two hours on Monday morning.

Occupational therapy and Speech therapy decided that I have met their goals for me and they both discharged me Monday. That was my last day of each. I have had 28 days of each category of therapy spread over two months. It has helped me tremendously.

I will have one more day of Physical therapy on Friday of this week. That will be my last day for now.

As soon as I can pull it together, I will try to post pictures of all of my regular therapists and write a little more about my therapy experience. I am very thankful that therapy was available to me!

That is all for today.

Davy

Look for our Word For Wednesday tomorrow morning.

The Weekend Dispatch 3/18/24

Wow! We were blessed with a wonderful weekend and we are glad to tell you about it. 

We had three full hours of therapy on Friday and came away with some great information.

If nothing changes, Speech therapy and Occupational therapy will end on Wednesday, March 27 IF not before. Physical therapy will pause on March 27 for a few weeks. I will go back toward the third week of April and they will evaluate how I am doing at that point.

After the evaluation, they will either discharge me or schedule more therapy as needed. That fits good with my loosely held plan that I detailed last week. After March 27, we hope to travel in the car a few weeks preaching on Sundays and mid-weeks and see how I handle that. Yay!

The therapists have help me tremencously the lst many weeks. I will write more about them and add pictures of my regular therapists when we are through.

Saturday, KJo and Odie attended a baby shower for Kayla Jo in Hillsboro, Ohio. It looks like they had a great time.

Sunday morning I preached for the first time since the stoke for my Pastor at Dryden Rd. I was very apprehensive but the Lord the Lord blessed us wonderfully. He surprised me in an awesome way! Hallelujah

I am so thankul for the touch of the Lord Sunday morning. I needed His touch and He came to me so sweetly.

That wraps up our weekend. Thank you for stoppig by.

Davy