Friday Features: Montevallo's Bohan Fights to Finish Career on Her Terms
By Chris Megginson
A newcomer to the Gulf South Conference, Montevallo’s
Kristy Bohan has already made a name for herself in NCAA Division II volleyball, being named the Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year, Southeast Region Player of the Year and an All-American last season.
Four years ago though, Bohan felt her Montevallo volleyball career might be over before it started when she was first diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease called Myasthnia Gravis (MG).
As a 13-year-old, Bohan began having trouble seeing the board. That’s all she knew to say when she went to the eye doctor. At the time, she wasn’t able to describe the streaking look she experienced, known as double vision. Once she moved up to Grissom High School, she began to excel as a volleyball player. She was named the team’s most improved player following her 2011 sophomore season, and then was recruited by Montevallo the following year. However, as much as her skill on the court excelled, her effort in practice appeared to lack on some days. She’d be moving slowly or wouldn’t get low enough. Her coach even kicked her out of the gym for not trying hard.
“It was understandable,” said Bohan. “I didn’t realize that I was having symptoms. It looked like to anyone that I was being lazy.”
There were times she couldn’t swallow her food or would look in the mirror and her eyelids would droop and she couldn’t open them. This led to doctor visits and tests.
Throughout her senior season she went through six months of tests seeking an answer. It began with the eye doctor, followed by a neurologist and then an immunologist. There were MRI scans to make sure the problem was not with the brain. Finally, in the spring of 2013 a blood test revealed MG. The disease “decapitates the nerves”, as Bohan puts it, restricting the signal for skeletal muscles. Some experience issues breathing or weakness of arms and legs. For Bohan, it mainly affects her neck, chest and facial muscles.
She was nervous to tell her college coach,
Katie O’Brien.
“I didn’t know what she would think. There’s no protocol for this kind of thing,” Bohan said.
But O’Brien listened and assured Bohan, an All-State player, she was still wanted at UM.
“We were both committed to doing whatever we could to make this work,” O’Brien said.
That fall she told the team about MG during the first week of preseason, a moment that has continued each year.
“Everyone expressed concern if she could make it through the (first) season,” O’Brien said. “Kristy said she could, and I feel that determination has made a big difference.”
While Bohan said she could play, she admits that during her freshman season she feared every bad game might be her last.
“I was young and scared,” she said.
But she was not going to let MG control her life, including volleyball. She learned to embrace the possibility of playing her last game and set to play her heart out every match – an attitude she believes has now increased her mental toughness.
“It definitely lit a fire under me. I didn’t want to end my career disappointed in how much I had been able to do before it took me out,” Bohan said.
As a freshman, she led the team with 115 blocks. Sophomore year was no different, leading the team in kills (316) and blocks (107), including a UM single-match record for 11 blocks against Southern Wesleyan. Last season, Bohan smashed a league-best 452 kills and career-high 115 blocks to lead Montevallo and claim her second All-Conference selection and Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year honors. She went on to be named All-Southeast Region Player of the Year and an All-American by the Division II Conference Commissioners Association (D2CCA) and College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) – Montevallo’s first All-America selection since joining Division II in 1996.
Now that her final season is here, Bohan says it’s no different than how she has approached her previous three.
“I’ve been here before,” she said. “I’ve been playing like this could be my last one for four years now. It’s been a process and a realist look at it. It could be anyone’s last season, but because I’ve been dealing with that for so long, it’s given me a perspective I’m comfortable with.”
Through the first four matches this season, Bohan is among the top in the Gulf South Conference with 39 kills and 12 blocks. Montevallo (3-1) make its return to GSC action on Friday, Sept. 15 at Valdosta State University.
Bohan said she is looking forward to being part of Montevallo’s return to the GSC. First, it allows more opportunities for her family and friends to watch her compete closer to her hometown, Huntsville, including when UM travels to UAH on Sept. 26. Mainly, she’s ready to do her part in helping the team compete in its new conference.
“We’re going to try to go in reckless abandon, no expectations. Every conference has its history of teams that are really good, and we’re not part of that yet,” said Bohan. “We’re going to try to forget about any expectations that might have traditionally been there and go in and try to have the best season possible. I think that will be one of or strong suits – being the newcomer who can come in and shake things up.”
Through it all, she says she doesn’t notice her MG symptoms during matches, except for the occasional double vision after having to look up into the lights. It affects her the most in the classroom, where she will have to support her head on her hand because of neck muscles feeling weak – a habit she wants to break because it makes her look less engaged.
O’Brien says she gives a lot of credit to Bohan’s success as a student-athlete begins with having great time management skills, eating healthy and putting an emphasis on eight hours of sleep to help with recovery, but also in how she has learned to manage her fluctuating symptoms and stays in communication with the coaches and athletic trainers.
“She shares when she is not feeling well, at that point she is usually feeling exceptionally poor. She really does push through a lot more than what everyone realizes,” O’Brien said.
One of those moments came in April 2016, when Bohan posted a photo on Instagram of her sitting at a desk with an IV in her left arm, smiling and giving a thumbs up. It was her first social media post about MG during her college years.
The post told about her starting her IV infusion – an at-home, 5-hour treatment with “extreme side effects.” It was her first to undergo such a treatment. Her normal course of treatment is taking a daily large extended-release pill called Mestinon – the same drug Gulf War veterans took as a pretreatment for exposure to nerve gas.
However, Bohan didn’t share the photo seeking pity but to raise awareness for MG and to encourage others by telling her story to a 3,500-member Facebook group named “Myasthenia Gravis Won’t Stop Me!”
In the post, her first, she wrote “Being a successful student-athlete and having this disease has been ridiculously hard, but it paid off to be nationally recognized … I’m finishing on my terms, not when MG tries to stop me. Keep fighting everyone, set a goal, even if it’s crazy.”
Bohan said she made the post because she wanted to add to the happy perspective she’s benefited from on the Facebook group and hopes it will help someone reach their goal as it did her of playing college volleyball.
“I think if one person decided to try something that they weren’t sure they could do that would make a difference,” Bohan said. “Everyone has something that is holding them back, or that they’re worried might hold them back, and if you can just get out there and try, that might make a big difference.”
Bohan, who currently holds a 3.8 GPA, will graduate in May with a major in psychology and minor in chemistry. She hopes to increase her efforts to raise awareness for MG so 13-year-old girls experiencing the same thing she did may have heard of the disease instead of wondering what is wrong. Yet, just like with volleyball, she doesn’t want MG to control her. She hopes to use her degree to get into a master’s program and seek a Ph.D. and one day make a breakthrough in research for psychological conditions that have no real answers today.
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