Ray Boland

Family, friends and community,

After reading the most recent update from Ray's daughter Evan a few of us decided the best way to help
the Bolands is to create a campaign to raise money for immediate needs and also for needs that may
arrise once Ray is home.

Intial funds will go toward making their home wheelchair/handicap accessable, retro fitting bathroom
and shower, purchasing a hospital bed and whatever else they need to make sure he can live in his own
home safely and in comfort.

Ray will be coming home the end of January so we will need to start on these projects
immediately! Depending on the generosity of our community we will include a wheelchair
accessible van and financial support for ongoing medical costs and therapy. 

Please help us share Ray's story on Facebook
“Prayers for Ray” and on all your social media platforms and church groups, DONATE and
finally share this campaign with those who know and love the Bolands. 

From: Evan Boland
Friends of Ray- Facebook page 
Dec. 30, 2020

My Dads progress has continued to be slow and steady. He improves a little every day. He is now almost eating real food, is doing much better during Physical Therapy- he is learning to sit, stand, and balance. Hopefully soon he will be able to walk. His speech has gotten very good, but he still struggles following directions. He also still has problems with short term memory and vision. The reason for this is because those parts of the brain require the most oxygen- which he did not have in his heart attack. We met with his doctor yesterday and even though he is impressed with his progress, he did tell us we need to prepare to have him taken care of by someone for the rest of his life. This type of injury even though it’s harder to see is more difficult to recover from than strokes or even traumatic brain injuries, because the entire brain is hurting to some capacity. However, I still think with the power of prayer he can improve further than that, so please keep him in your prayers. Specifically for vision, memory, and for him to be out of his confused state that he often enters into.
To prepare for the future, we are looking to make our home wheelchair accessible and looking for all sorts of things- like hospital bed and shower chair- so if you have anything in your homes for handicapped help that you’re not using please reach out to us. He will come home from Sheperd likely at the end of January and continue therapy in our home for a while into the future, until he is strong enough to get in and out of the car to go to therapy. Thank you all for your prayers, please continue to pray for him to recover completely because I know
he can!

What happend?

On November 1st, Ray Boland (56) had a heart attack after going for a run with his son. CPR was immediately done on him and he was resuscitated by paramedics fifteen minutes after it happened. However,
after he was stabilized it became clear that Ray had suffered hypoxic brain damage due to being without oxygen. Although the MRI and CT brain scans showed mild damage, it has took him two weeks to emerge from a coma-like state.

On November 16th he began showing signs of minimal consciousness and has since been progressing at a steady rate. He started talking and responding to simple commands, and with the help of physical
therapy, he’s even started walking. Although he’s still designated as minimally conscious, he’s been
progressing rapidly over the last few days.

 Our family was told by the doctors that they believe Ray would be a good candidate for the Shepherd
center given that they have a minimally conscious program. However, after being referred to Shepherd,
we were rejected because of our insurance. Although our insurance told us that they would cover the
Shepherd center, the Shepherd center said that they don’t accept the type of insurance we have. This was obviously distressing to us, given that the Shepherd Center is by far the best brain rehabilitation center in the southeast. But then we saw on Shepherd’s website that they would accept out of pocket pay. Our
family has the means to pay out of pocket, so we reached back out in order to see if we could arrange this. However, we were still rejected by Shepherd, because of our insurance, despite informing them that we would be willing to pay out of pocket. We understand that there are no guarantees with rehab, but we
are trying to get our dad the best care he can get so that he has the best chance for recovery. On
Shepherd’s website, it says they are willing to work with people financially who are trying to pay out of
pocket. We just want someone to re-review our case so we can pay out of pocket for him. 


Prayers answered! 

On Dec 7th Ray was moved into The Shepard Center for intensive therapy. Erika is living full time with
him there as they do not allow outside visitors because of Covid 19. They will remain there until the end 
of January

 Short Biography about Ray Boland
By: Raymond and Evan (Ray and Erika's children)

 Ray Boland is a faithful Christian man, with two kids and a loving wife. He has been married for 25 years and during that time has been the most giving and loving father you could possibly imagine. Ray went to
the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. After graduating, he served our country for 8 years and
fought in the Gulf War. After leaving the Air Force and meeting our mom, he moved back to Atlanta and
worked for Coca-Cola for 10 years. But when our mom had the dream of starting a local bakery, our dad
dropped everything to support her and her dream. For most of our childhood, our parents owned two small businesses (Great Harvest Bread Company). These businesses, however, were so much more than bakeries to so many people. My parents went out of their way to give back to the community in any way that they could. For example, any night there was leftover bread at the bakery, my dad would load up our minivan and drive it to the food bank or to the church. Regularly my parents would open their doors on Sundays (when they typically were closed) in order to sponsor a local charity, giving the proceeds for that day to said organization. Our parents acted as mentors to many of the high school and college kids they hired. There are dozens of young adults that consider our parents to be key influencers in making them the people that they are today. Additionally, our parents went out of their way to hire individuals that were down on their luck and unable to get a job elsewhere. They regularly worked with employees outside of work and in their personal lives to help them get back on their feet.

Our dad is also an incredibly active man. He loves to ski, run, and hike. He’s run multiple marathons and was actually supposed to run another marathon later this year. A running joke with our family was that his goal in life was to run one mile when he turned 100. One of my dad’s other goals in life was to hike the Appalachian Trail. Growing up, he had read multiple books on it and told us that he wanted to try to hike it before he turned 65. Although we know with this incident he may never get to do his favorite activities again, we wanted to demonstrate to you that our father is a man full of life. He has an ability to persevere and a will to fight that you often don’t see in most people.  

 Outside of all of this, though, one of his best qualities has always been his selflessness and generosity. He has the biggest heart and gives to literally anyone who asks. We certainly experienced this growing up as his children. Our dad is the kind of dad who would turn around on his commute in rush hour traffic to bring us the homework we forgot, knowing full well it would make him late to work. He’s the kind of dad who would regularly drive home from work to have lunch with his eight-year-old daughter because she didn’t have any friends at her new school. He’s the kind of dad who would come watch all 23 of his son’s varsity soccer games, even though his son only played in 6 of them. He’s the kind of dad who would drop everything in his life and help his son move all the way across the country because he didn’t want him to have to do it alone. This wasn’t just exclusive to his family, though; our dad would go out of his way to give to a plethora of charities each year. These charities included The Shriner Hospital, Leukemia Lymphoma Society, Toys for Tots, Georgia Food Bank, St. Brendan the Navigator, Knights of Columbus, Wounded Warrior, Cenacolo Drug Rehabilitation, and at least 20 more each year. More than just giving, he impacts everyone that he talks to and spreads joy everywhere he goes. He is honestly the best man that we know, and this is echoed throughout every community he is involved in. There is so much more we could include about him, but that would be a novel. We know he has so much more work to do on this Earth!