Holloway cancer benefit Saturday

It was a cause for celebration Friday evening as the Holloway family of Phillips received the news that the family patriarch, Stacey, is now cancer free after being diagnosed last year. The news will highlight the Saturday cancer benefit to help support the Phillips farmer during the final stretch of his recovery. The event to be held at the Phillips Memorial Hall will begin at 4 p.m. and will include a free will donation dinner. 
At his side throughout his ordeal has been Hollway’s wife of 38 years, Stephanie, or “Steph” as she is more commonly known. 
Holloway was finishing planting beans last year when he began to feel that something was wrong.
“I started having some issues and I just kept it from (Steph),” he said. “Then because of the drought I went from planting to basically irrigating until about August and I kept losing three to four pounds every 24 hours and I finally told her.”
Following a colonoscopy, Holloway learned he had a signet ring cell carcinoma or colorectal cancer. The cancer occurs when polyps form and grow within the colon or rectum. Despite his diagnosis and beginning his treatment, Holloway continued his bean harvest.
“They were all amazed that with the amount of chemo that he was taking that he was able to run his combine all day and into the evening,” Steph commented. “He paid for it. He spent a lot of time in the hospital, because he was dehydrated and just totally exhausted.”
When Holloway got so sick he couldn’t continue his harvest, his son, Tanner quit his job at Pioneer Seed to help finish what his father had started.  He had moved back home from Axtell two weeks before they found out about the cancer.
“All this time we have been trying to get him to move back and two weeks before we find out (Stacey) had cancer, they finally moved back,” she shared. “But God has His ways. I guess He knows and He knew the plan.”
By the time Stacey underwent surgery to remove the cancer, he had gone through 10 rounds of chemotherapy. He under endured radiation treatments and came to jokingly refer to the table where the radiation was administered as “the barbecue pit.” 
“You’ve got to laugh about that, he was making jokes,” Steph commented. “You’ve got to or you go crazy.”
Both treatments had their downside for Holloway.
“Every time he was in the hospital, every time he had treatment, every time he had IV fluids, because he was put on chemo, they found out that he would dehydrate really easy, but the radiation and the chemo dehydrated him more,” Steph said. “He would have chemo five days a week and in between that five days, he would have IV fluids at least two to three times a week just to keep him able to function.”
To make matters worse, Holloway tested positive for both influenza and COVID in November.
“Because of COVID, my immune system was so run down, if I caught a cold, they would put me in a hospital,” he explained. “There were funerals of neighbors and friends that I grew up with that we didn’t go to and just a lot of people that I always talked to, I rarely saw them.”
“Watching your loved one go through something like this gives you a pretty good idea of what hell looks like, because it is horrible,” Steph stated. “It takes everything you have and everybody would say, ‘Just take it a day at a time.’ Well, 90 percent of the time it was second by second because they’re so sick, they’re weak and in pain. The mental part of it is horrible.” 
“You take a very strong, independent man like my husband, and he is one of the strongest men I’ve ever seen in my life, to watch him go through this and he hardly ever took any pain pills through this whole thing it has been unreal,” Steph commented.
“When you find out somebody has cancer, your first instinct is to ‘Oh, I’m so sorry that person has cancer,’ that’s what I used to do,” she said. “But now, after being a caregiver, people need to start thinking about the caregivers, what they go through, because I absolutely had no idea until I went through it. It’s hell on everybody.”
The Holloways expressed their gratitude to the doctors and nurses had helped Stacey and his family throughout his recovery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and the medical staff of Nebraska Cancer Center in Grand Island.
“The doctors, nurses, office ladies, lab ladies, anyone who is involved with each patient at the Nebraska Cancer Center are absolutely fantastic people,” she stated. “They have become part of our family.”
The Holloways have also received a great deal of support for Saturday’s benefit, with Aurora Cooperative providing food and various businesses providing a variety of prizes for the auctions. A live auction will feature tickets for up to 10 people in the Pioneer Suite at a University of Nebraska Boys Basketball game and a six-man hunt at the Wild Wildebeest’s Lodges in South Africa.
The benefit will take place Saturday at Phillips Memorial Hall at 501 3rd St. It will begin with a car show and shine organized by the Allan Coats of Giltner at 4 p.m. followed by a silent auction from 5 to 8 p.m. 
Supper will begin at 6:30 for a free will donation and will be followed by the live auction at 8. 
The Holloway grandchildren will also be selling split the pot tickets as a fundraiser the night of the event.