When Caylie McMahon woke up from emergency surgery, doctors had good and bad news: They removed the tumor in her spine, but the left side of her body was paralyzed from the waist down. They told her she might never walk again.
It was March 2021, and the 18-year-old was due at the University of Michigan in August for her freshman year on the field hockey team.
She couldn't feel anything below her belly button on her left side, but she could feel a fire burning inside her.
"I always say that mindset is everything," McMahon said. "I really never thought for even a second that I was never going to walk again."
She told her doctors, "I'm going to run out of the doors."
Now, just a few years later, she is preparing to run the Boston Marathon.
The motivation that fueled her return
McMahon said her team at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital laughed when she told them she planned to run. They weren't being cruel, just realistic. Even when it is successful, this type of recovery takes a long time and is mainly focused on navigating a new reality with limited movement.
McMahon repeated: "No, I'm going to run out of these hospital doors. That's the goal."
Alana Richardson, McMahon's childhood friend and field hockey teammate at Michigan, said she never doubted her friend's resilience, even though they were terrified of the unknown.
"She just went in guns blazing," Richardson said. "It was unbelievably overwhelming and scary, but she just told me, 'I'm going to go in there and kick this thing's (butt).'"
McMahon never stopped to ask why this happened to her. There wasn't time. She did mirror therapy, watching her foot hit the ground. She saw spinal cord and sports specialists. There were still parts of her leg she couldn't feel, but she worked to relearn how to walk each day.
Caylie McMahon used a wheelchair after an emergency surgery to remove a tumor from her spinal cord. (Photos courtesy of Caylie McMahon)
McMahon learned to walk again, and eventually run, at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Once on campus, McMahon worked with medical staff, athletic trainers and strength and conditioning experts to prepare her for her return to the field. "Spaulding was awesome, but being in a team environment helped her thrive and recover the way she did," coach Kristi Gannon Fisher said.
McMahon hadn't even met her coaches or teammates in person yet, but the support she felt from Ann Arbor pushed her through those grueling weeks.
Kristi Gannon Fisher, then a Michigan field hockey assistant coach, met McMahon for the first time after surgery. McMahon walked with a cane, and Gannon Fisher noticed how depleted she looked. The coach didn't know McMahon well, and seeing her in that state raised doubts. Yet McMahon consistently updated her coaches on a weekly basis, sharing her progress toward her return.
"Not really knowing her but hearing her voice and the way that she was handling what was dealt to her as a young person was our first real impression of what kind of person we had on our hands and what we were getting at Michigan," Gannon Fisher said.
Field hockey became McMahon's North Star, and the connection with her teammates and coaches motivated her return.
"(The coaches and the team) never said, 'Oh, if you play again.' They just said, 'When you're back on the team, when you're ready to play,' which was incredible. That really helped me know that the goal was realistic," McMahon said.
Ninety-nine days after her surgery, McMahon ran a 5-kilometer race. A week after that, she put her field hockey goalie pads back on. In August, she arrived on Michigan's campus.
She ended up medically redshirting her freshman year. She felt relieved she even made it to campus.
The former goalkeeper still can't feel her left shin or foot, but she found ways to adjust so she could continue playing field hockey.
"Michigan is the biggest team," she said. "It's the best sports culture and support of student-athletes that I've ever experienced, especially peer to peer, supporting student-athletes, but also the community. Coming here, it felt like home."
That support began with her teammates.
"When I was a freshman, my upperclassmen really took me under their wing and were so supportive," she said. "Our team culture has just been phenomenal since I've gotten here, and that's something that we've really cultivated and worked on."
Richardson saw the impact of McMahon's relationship-first approach.
"She always says having a surface-level conversation is her definition of horrible," Richardson said. "Caylie became somebody who was everybody's best friend, the person that everyone looked to for advice, guidance, support, leadership, talent on the field, anything. She was always thinking, 'What can I do for others?'"
McMahon (middle) and Alana Richardson (right) have been teammates and friends since childhood. Teammate Abby Tamer is at left.
Gannon Fisher, now the head field hockey coach, said McMahon initially led by inspiring people, demonstrating through her work ethic that anything is possible. Yet throughout her five years at Michigan, McMahon's leadership transcended that.
"She's just super aware of people's individual struggles, and I think part of that is because of what she has been through and what she has overcome. She just has such empathy, and that helps in her relational leadership."
Gannon Fisher saw how she built bridges between freshmen and fifth-years, international student-athletes and locals, goalkeepers and forwards. McMahon fostered unity and competition to make their team better.
"Her competitive spirit within that goalkeeper group, pushing people to be better every single day but then also literally being their best friends at the same time. She pushes people, but then also supports them to achieve what they want to achieve. That's the biggest thing we took for granted while she was here."
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McMahon was also intentional with the way she approached college. She met regularly with a sports psychologist and a nutritionist. She did an internship with the NBA. She used career services, even going on a career venture trip to London.
She prepared herself for the rest of her career and life while cherishing her time on the field. By her sophomore year, she earned a starting position. She ended up winning two Big Ten Conference championships and Academic All-Big Ten honors three times.
Then, the spring before her fifth year, she began feeling numbness and tingling down her arms and legs. That night, her hands went completely stiff — "like Lego hands" — and she lost feeling in her feet. Her roommates rushed her to the hospital. After performing four MRIs, doctors discovered a neurological disorder, one that unpredictably impacts muscle control.
Back at the starting line
She had to relearn basic movements like wiggling her fingers and putting on socks. Again, she had to relearn how to walk and run. There was no cure for this disorder, only methods to manage the symptoms.
Yet this time, instead of making phone calls and sending flowers, McMahon's teammates — now her best friends — would sneak into the hospital, exceeding the visitor limit on a daily basis. The coaches slept in her hospital room overnight. Her friends drove her to physical therapy and helped her shower when she couldn't feel her hands or feet.
"It gave people around her the opportunity to step up in ways that Caylie had stepped up for them on countless occasions," Gannon Fisher said.
"I wouldn't have been able to get through either one of my paralysis moments without my teammates," McMahon reflected. "That's what sports gives you. It gives you a support system. It gives you connections. It makes you confident about yourself. It makes you realize, 'I can do this because I've done hard things.'"
McMahon celebrates with her teammates after a win. Beyond accolades, she considers herself successful simply because she has the ability to play the sport she loves.
Again, she relearned everything and was able to play for her fifth year, although she admits it looked different than she would have expected.
"I consider myself successful because I can just play," she said. "I didn't give up on myself, but other people didn't give up on me. Being a student-athlete is a transformative experience. You could go through being paralyzed twice, and your school will still stick with you."
Last year, Michigan student-athletes voted for McMahon to represent their class in a commencement speech. It was one of Gannon Fisher's proudest moments as a coach.
"Her standing on the graduation stage, which is an honor in itself, and then the way she handled telling her story and how being a part of the Michigan family, and the team, and the greater student-athlete population — because she literally has friends on probably all of the other 28 teams at Michigan — she's just that kind of person," Gannon Fisher said. "That's Caylie."
McMahon, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in statistics, credits her time as a student-athlete with making her who she is.
"I came to Michigan and said I want to be the best field hockey player I can be," she said. "As I've gotten here, Michigan has turned me into the best possible person I can be."
Now, she is finishing up her fifth year and a master's program in business analytics.
In full-circle fashion, McMahon has trained to run the Boston Marathon on April 20 in honor of Spaulding Rehabilitation. She wants to give back to the place that set her on the road to recovery, using the marathon as a fundraiser for its therapies, programs and research.
Richardson said this moment precisely defines her friend.
"Look at her now. If this doesn't say exactly what you think it says about her. ... She said she wanted to run out of rehab, and now she's running the Boston Marathon."
