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
