Beating the odds

In November, just before the start of the Rattlers’ basketball season, Tolar High School junior Kaden Delgado was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes rapid muscle weakness.

He spent nearly two weeks in the hospital hoping he’d be able to walk again.

“First we went to the Gran-bury ER and they just told me I was dehydrated from strep (throat),” Delgado said. “We waited two more days, and I just got worse.

“My hands started getting numb, I couldn’t walk, so we went to Cook’s. Four days after a ton of testing, they finally did this muscle test on my legs and my arms, and that’s what showed us that I had Guillain-Barré syndrome.”

Delgado first heard of the syndrome earlier in 2018, when Dallas Cowboys center Travis Frederick was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré in the summer.

Delgado immediately started receiving IV/IG treatment, which lasted for five days. While that was happening, he had to deal with his failing muscles.

Guillain-Barré can affect people with varying levels of severity. In some cases, the condition can be fatal, while others are left without sight or permanently unable to walk.

“I didn’t think I was going to be able to walk again. I really didn’t,” Delgado said. “At the time, we didn’t know what was going on. They said, ‘You might not be able to see.’”

“I was terrified.”

SHOWING SUPPORT

While Delgado’s mother was a constant source of support, very few people back in Tolar knew what he was going through.

“The first week I was in there, nobody ever texted me,” Delgado said. “So I’m like, ‘Why is nobody texting me?’ That’s when I completely shut down – nobody cares, why should I care?

“At first I just felt really alone. I didn’t know that everyone didn’t know.”

But once word got out that Delgado was battling Guillain-Barré, his teammates began to rally behind him.

“Anytime a member of your team goes through something like that, you want to be there to support him and hope that he gets back to full strength as quickly as possible,” said Tolar head coach Ethan Lunn.

Senior guard Derian Morphew has an aunt that is still unable to walk after being affected by Guillain-Barré two years ago.

“I knew what he was going through,” Morphew said. “We were devastated for him. He even told us while he was in the hospital, he really wanted to be out on the court with us.”

FIGHTING HARD

Doctors originally told Delgado that he would have to stay in the hospital for at least three more weeks after he concluded a five-day round of IV/IG treatment.

That wasn’t good enough for him.

“I told them no way,” he said. “I was like, I’m getting out.”

The doctors were “mind-blown” at his recovery, Delgado said, and he was discharged the day after he completed his treatment. Before he left, he had to prove he was ready to go home.

“I had so many doctors show up to see what I could do,” Delgado said. “I told them, ‘I want out of here,’ and they said, ‘Let’s see what you can do.’

“We did. And I got out.”

“With him and the disease that he had, him getting back is a testament to himself,” Lunn said.

TWO SURPRISES

Because Delgado was discharged so early, he was able to make a special appearance at a Tolar game.

“I got back and I surprised the team in Glen Rose when they played Graford,” he said. “They were all really surprised to see me there.”

But the Rattlers had a surprise of their own waiting for him. They had ordered new shooting shirts, all with his name and number on the back.

“Coach (Lance) Lefevre and I were sitting in the office and talking, ‘What can we do to show him that we’re behind him, and we support him?” Lunn said. “We didn’t want him to feel like he was left out or that we had forgotten about him by any means.”

“It just so happened that the day he got back and released from the hospital, those shirts showed up. We opened up the box, and told him, ‘You’re not with us right now on the floor, but we’re going to take your number with us, and you are going to be with us until you get back.’”

Delgado said seeing the shirts was a special moment.

“It meant a lot knowing the team was supporting me,” he said. “It meant quite a bunch, and that boosted me wanting to get back.”

He wasn’t the only one that received a boost. Supporting Delgado has helped bring the Rattlers closer together.

“The season is long, it’s a grind, and so you want to find different things to celebrate and keep you going throughout the season,” Lunn said. “Having him back, practices get long, and the weeks get long, you get tired, and it’s a shot in the arm to get someone like him back.

“It’s given us something to come together over and get in support of, to pull for one of our brothers.”

GETTING BACK IN THE GAME

Delgado underwent four weeks of physical therapy, exercising his leg muscles and building his stamina back up. Guillain-Barré is something he’ll have for the rest of his life, but with proper management, he said he’ll be able to reach “95 percent” of his prior ability.

While therapy was tough, Delgado said he was “just glad to be back and doing something.” Eventually, he was cleared to return to practice.

Delgado played some junior varsity minutes against Millsap last Friday, and finally suited up with the varsity on Tuesday against Paradise.

His big moment finally came in the second quarter.

“In the background I could hear the whole crowd scream, but I was like, do your job,” Delgado remembered.

He played a little over two minutes before being subbed out. He’s still working on getting back into game shape – but the vast majority of the work was done two months ago.

“It was a lot of work,” Delgado said. I could’ve just laid in that hospital bed.

“I could still be there right now if I didn’t have the want-to.”

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