Rising WAY above trials

BY Dawn Rankins

Little 18-month-old Ryann Boshard laid in a hospital bed 13 years ago when her doctor gave her parents the news. Her severely-burned foot would need to be amputated.

Heeding the plea of concerned parents, the doctor opted instead for multiple surgeries and the foot, albeit heavily damaged, was saved.

“Little” Ryann is now a freshman at Temescal Canyon High School and participates on the very athletic Cheer Team which recently won the CIF Championship competition. The foot has been pieced back together and through years of therapy, Ryann now tumbles, jumps and is thrown on top of human pyramids.

All that physical exertion is even more miraculous considering Ryann was diagnosed three years ago with a rare form of diabetes, Diabetes Insipidus, which requires her to drink three liters of water daily to stay hydrated.

For this young athlete to be able to simply walk to the cheer mats would seem to be quite the accomplishment, but after these seemingly insurmountable trials, for her to rise to the level of being a member of an elite Cheer Team is nothing short of miraculous.

Ryann made her debut into this world on June 1, 2007, a month before her original due date. Ryann weighed only 5 pounds, 10 ounces at birth.

Ryann is the youngest of three children, born to Canyon Lake’s Jeremiah and Jai’lani Bochard. She has two older siblings, Dylan, who is studying to become a history teacher at BYU Idaho, and Rebecca, who is employed at Pack, Wrap & Post in the Canyon Lake Town Center.

Ryann’s story is not one of tragedy, but of survival. This young girl not only arrived in this world early, but she has overcome obstacles that have required strength and a fighting spirit.

When Ryann was nearly 1½ years old, she accidentally walked on covered coals of a campfire during a family trip to the Glamis Sand Dunes in Imperial County. Despite Jeremiah being able to immediately lift her out of the pit, the burns were catastrophic…one of her feet sustained fourth-degree burns.

The family immediately drove Ryann to a nearby hospital in Brawley. The tiny hospital was unable to help Ryann and the doctors there told her parents to get her to a bigger hospital, one that could treat the burn.

“I begged them to help my baby,” Jai’lani said. “But all they could do was give Ryann some heavy medication to calm her a bit so she could sleep off and on during the drive to San Diego’s UCSD burn ward.”

Upon arrival at the hospital, Ryann was admitted and prepped for surgery. The doctor prepared mom and dad for the worst, telling the distraught parents that their little girl’s foot would need to be amputated.

The parents begged the doctor to save her foot, but he made no promises. Little Ryann’s foot was severely burned, dead skin was falling off all around it and her other foot had splashes of second- and third-degree burns as well.

Because Ryann was so little and her foot was so small, the doctor felt amputation was the only option. There wasn’t much left of her little foot. The hot coals had burned off the skin completely from the bottom of her foot.

If the foot could be saved, the doctor said she would most likely walk with a significant limp since skin grafting on the bottom of the foot would be so thin.

The parents were relieved when the doctor told them that the initial surgery was a success. He said it looked like they saved the foot, but she would most likely lose her toes.

Jai’lani, happy that it looked like the foot could be saved, said she told him that while they didn’t like that Ryann would lose her toes, they could work with it. She would make it work for her daughter.

After three surgeries, the doctor was able to conclude little Ryann’s toes had been saved from amputations as well. With the good news her toes were saved, the doctor informed Jai’lani that little Ryann most likely would never have toenails.

“That’s okay, we can work with that,” Jai’lani told the doctor. “I will find a way to make her toes pretty, either by pedicures, or maybe even a tattoo. It doesn’t matter. I will make it work.”

The skin on the bottom of Ryann’s left foot was completely gone. The doctors and nurses had to wrap her foot in cadaver skin to keep it from “air burning” the muscle.

After one month in the hospital, the little girl had undergone eight surgeries. It was the eighth surgery when the skin graft took place. Skin from her left outer thigh was taken to lay over the top of her foot. A wound VAC was used for four days to help with the healing. Four more surgeries were yet to take place.

During that month Jai’lani left the hospital only once. She said she left for only four hours to go home and take a home shower, grab some fresh clothes and then she was back at the hospital. Meanwhile, Jeremiah was pulling double duty, being mom and dad to the couple’s other two children and holding down a full-time job. Grandparents were also on duty to help, which Jeremiah and Jai’lani still reflect on how helpful they were during those stressful times.

The doctors released Ryann to go home about a month after the accident. It was on that day that little Ryann took her first steps.

“Watching her take those steps was the most extraordinary feeling of joy,” Jai’lani said. “Seeing my baby’s suffering and everything she had to go through for over a month was unbearable. No child should ever have to suffer like that. I felt helpless time and time again. I wanted to ease her pain, take it away, but I couldn’t. I could only hold her and be by her side. To see her walk again and to see her smile, I knew she was strong and she would conquer this experience.”

Ryann’s healing process wasn’t over when she left the hospital. More work needed to continue at home. The damaged nerves in her foot caused pain.

The nurses instructed the family that they needed to massage her little foot twice a day. The massaging would help smooth her new skin out. Determined Jai’lani followed the instructions and the work paid off.

Some time later, at a subsequent visit, the nurses congratulated Jai’lani on a job well done. Her foot’s skin was smooth.

But the process getting to that point was sometimes excruciating. Ryann would wake up in pain during the night and all Jeremiah and Jai’lani could do was massage her foot.

“The healing process consisted of constant care,” Jai’lani said. “Massaging her new skin graft was insufferable with constant round-the-clock care for months.”

As Mom and Ryann would go through their routine, “cute foot” became the new name for little Ryann’s foot. When she would experience the sporadic shooting pain and discomfort, the “cute foot” would be massaged to help ease the pain. Part of the daily routine included putting on the pressure garment and silicone pieces on the “cute foot.” The routine continued for over a year.

Ryann is a fighter and survivor. Because of her nerve pain and burn, her parents put her in tumbling classes when she was just five. They wanted her to use the foot in hopes of helping with the pain and strengthening the foot.

The tumbling, however, resulted in more than just physical therapy. She fell in love with the sport.

“It’s because of my mom putting me in tumbling that I am a varsity cheerleader now,” Ryann said. “I don’t think cheerleading would have been my course in life if it weren’t for the burn and my ‘cute foot’.”

The burn accident and resulting medical bills were overwhelming. Jeremiah and Jai’lani had no medical insurance. Paying the massive bills was impossible, they said. They were forced into
bankruptcy. Their Canyon Lake home they had built was lost as a result.

After losing their home, the young family moved to, of all places, Canyon Lake, TX. While there, Jeremiah said he decided to join the Army for the specific reason of being able to obtain insurance.

When Jeremiah got out of the service, Jai’lani expressed her desire to move back to Southern California and back to the “other Canyon Lake” where they purchased a lot. They wanted to rebuild in the community that felt like home. The bankruptcy made the process difficult.

About this time, Ryann began feeling sick to her stomach. She lost her appetite and everything she would drink went right through her every 15 to 30 minutes.

“We knew something was wrong,” Jai’lani said. “We took her to the hospital where after about a week and a half, she was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of diabetes, Diabetes Insipidus.”

Ryann deals with the diabetes by drinking massive amount of water to stay hydrated and by taking medication.

“I won’t just sit back and allow Diabetes Insipidus to control my life,” Ryann said.

Tumbling led to cheerleading and Ryann becoming a cheerleader at the age of 10 where she cheered for Canyon Lake Middle School. She made Varsity Cheer as a freshman at TCHS where she is a Flyer and Tumbler.

Ryann said her coach, Autumn Crawford, is completely aware and supportive of her medical conditions, but treats her like the other girls on the team and pushes her to be her best.

Ryann is currently in the advanced health and medical program at TCHS as part of her goal to enter the medical field as a nurse, a physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner.

She hopes to work with children. She said she wants to give back to sick and injured little ones and take good care of them, the way she remembers being taken care of.

Ryann said her sister is her best friend. Rebecca recalled the day her baby sister was burned. She said it’s one of her first memories and she said she remembers taking a water bottle and pouring water over the burn to help cool her baby sister’s foot.

The bond that was formed after Ryann’s accident carries over into their teens.

“My sister helped me with my self esteem,” Rebecca said. “I learned from my experience that you have to love yourself, regardless of what others think. You are the only one who can change your life and the way people see you.”

After years of planning and hard work, Jeremiah is finishing up the construction of their new Canyon Lake home.

“Even though the entire family is extremely busy with not only work, activities, and now the building of our new home, Ryann is the busiest of all,” Jeremiah said.

“She has a driven spirit and works hard. She is in tumbling, cheer and AP classes at school, then she helps around the house and when she’s done, she can be found up late completing her homework and studying.”