By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Caden Holloway has been on the Brandon varsity soccer team for four years, plays on the lacrosse team, and is looking forward to a carpentry apprenticeship after college.

But after he woke up in the hospital over the summer, he was worried he’d lose all of that and more because he couldn’t move his legs.
“I was working for a subcontracting company, and one day I woke up and the bottoms of my feet were numb,” said Holloway, a senior at Brandon High School. “I thought it was just because of the heavy, steel-toed boots I wear at work, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
Holloway woke up with numb feet on a Thursday, and didn’t feel any better or worse on Friday when he had plans to go up north with some friends for a camping trip. On Saturday, he got worse. He said his legs were weak and he could barely swallow so he called his mom and asked her to make him a doctor’s appointment.
“Then, Sunday, I kept coughing up phlegm,” he said. “We got home and my mom took me straight to the ER, but they didn’t know what was going on so they sent me to Beaumont in Royal Oak.”
At Royal Oak Beaumont, he had to be put on a ventilator to be able to get an MRI done, as he couldn’t lay down on his back.
“Apparently, they didn’t see anything on the MRI except my nerves being a little bit inflamed,” he said. “After that, I was still knocked out from the anesthetics. I woke up on Tuesday and I was like paralyzed.”
The closest diagnosis that Holloway received was Lyme disease from a tick bite, but the doctors couldn’t find a tick bite on him.
Holloway’s legs continued that way until Thursday when he was able to walk some, and then Friday he was discharged from the hospital and had to complete physical therapy three times a week for a month to regain his leg movement.
“It was full of ups and downs, waking up and not being able to move my legs, my first thought was I was going to be like that forever,” he said. “Once I got out of the hospital I was incredibly thankful I could still walk. I’m still feeling effects of it, muscle soreness, I’m not as fast as I used to be.”
Holloway worried that because of this, he would lose his senior year of soccer, because he’d been playing with the same group of teammates since he started playing soccer at seven years old.
But his team was there to support him, and his coach even held his spot on the team.
“They were huge in supporting me, they did a lot of my lawn chores, weeding, mowing the lawn,” he said. “When I got back home, it was a really warm welcome. Even though I couldn’t try out, they still put me on the team. I was very thankful for that.”
Holloway is center defender, and the team entered the state tournament on Thursday. He is planning on trying out if the college he chooses has a team.
After high school, he plans to get an associate’s degree at Central Michigan University, then completing a trade-school program for carpentry while completing his bachelor’s degree at night.
“I really like the hands on aspect of carpentry,” he said. “I want to be outside, and doing something different every day.”