THE BOY
WHO BEAT
LEUKEMIA
(and never does what's expected!)
"Good times." That's not what you'd expect a kid to say about
his years in and out of the hospital battling leukemia. But then
Ryan Durby isn't exactly an ordinary 11-year-old. The smart,
funny fifth-grader at Owl Creek Middle School doesn't exactly
like talking about his illness, but he will tell you what he liked
about Arkansas Children's Hospital:
• Gumby bears
• His leg cast
• Doctors and nurses
• Chick Fil-A
One morning when he was only three, Ryan he got out of
bed and couldn't walk. His mom, Avonia, said, "Come on,
you need to walk. Quit playing. Let's get going!" But he
couldn't put any pressure on his leg. Avonia was working
on her master's in social work degree at the University
of Arkansas, so she asked the babysitter, Miss Brenda,
to take Ryan to several doctor's visits. The boy could
point to where his left leg was hurting, but X-rays didn't
find anything suspicious. Baffled, the medical team
referred him to a pediatrics clinic
in Fayetteville. From there, he
was sent to Washington Regional
Medical Center for an MRI (magnetic
resonance imaging).
"We'll find out by Monday what's
going on," the doctor told Avonia (it
was Friday). Within an hour, he called
and said to come right back. Ryan had
a bone infection called osteomyelitis.
He stayed in the hospital for a couple
of days. But even though he was on
high-dosage medicine, the infection was spreading.
The next step in Ryan's journey was to Arkansas Children's Hospital in
Little Rock
"I was supposed to go to a Halloween party that night," Ryan said. But
instead, he and his mom drove to Children's, where Ryan was diagnosed
with leukemia and a bone infection.
"I was scared," Avonia said.
He had surgery to remove the infected pieces of bone and
install a rod (later removed) to stabilize the leg. Then he started
chemotherapy – in fact, three-and-a-half years of chemotherapy.
The infusions lasted all day, and he had to take pills, too. "I
didn't like chemotherapy. I didn't like taking the pills. We had
to break it apart and put it in applesauce. I would not take
that pill by itself. It was huge!"
OFFICIALKIDSMAG.COM
KID
HEROES
14 • Off icialKidsMag.com JUNE 2019
By Suzanne Rhodes
