That Andrean freshman Maeve Bouton has already started two varsity soccer games this season is like the cherry on top.
Bouton, who endured yearslong treatment for spinal deformities that could have caused paralysis eventually, is happy to be playing at all.
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“Once I got out there, within the first two weeks of summer conditioning, it was all coming back to me,” she said. “This feels really good to do. This feels like home.”
Bouton, who scored a goal during Andrean’s preseason jamboree, caught the attention of coach Eric Klocek with her soccer IQ.
“She just had a lot of knowledge of the game,” Klocek said. “She knew the sport inside and out at a very high level compared to some of the other freshmen who might just be picking up the sport.”
But what Klocek learned about Bouton’s off-field experiences in the past few years nearly left him without words.
“To think of where she was 18 months ago, and in our last game she was only off the field for 10 of the 80 minutes, it’s unbelievable,” Klocek said.
Bouton was about to start sixth grade at St. Thomas More in Munster in summer 2022 when she was told during her annual checkup to seek additional care for a possible scoliosis diagnosis. In April 2023, after X-rays and other tests at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Bouton had brain surgery in an attempt to relieve a small pocket of cerebral fluid at the top of her spine.
“They kept checking in on me, but for that whole summer, it never went down,” Bouton said.
Bouton wore a back brace as an extra layer of protection for her spine and was allowed to continue playing sports. By the end of 2023, however, a growth spurt had put additional stress on Bouton’s spine, causing her to experience pain caused by the bottom of her rib cage rubbing against the top of her hip bones. Wearing a back brace for 16 hours a day was also becoming an excessive burden.
“It got to a point where it was so uncomfortable,” she said. “I just wanted to get it fixed because sports are pretty much everything I’d ever done outside of school.”
Bouton’s mother, Katie, said she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing when she looked at X-rays.
“It didn’t even look like a spine,” Katie Bouton said. “If you’d put it in front of someone, they wouldn’t have known that’s what they were looking at. That’s how bad it got.”
Katie Bouton’s research pointed her toward Dr. A. Noelle Larson, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Under Larson’s guidance, Maeve Bouton was recommended for spinal fusion. But first, she needed a month of on-site halo-gravity traction, a nonsurgical procedure to correct her spinal deformities enough to make the success of spinal fusion possible.
So Maeve Bouton spent June 2024 at the Mayo Clinic undergoing HGT.
“I took it as my job to make sure that the essence of her was not compromised by this, that she came out of it the same Maeve as she was when she went in,” Katie Bouton said.
That was a group effort. Every weekend, the rest of the Bouton family — her father, Casey; her twin brother, Declan; and her older brother, Gavin — made the trek from Indiana to the Mayo Clinic.
Meanwhile, Maeve Bouton kept her spirits up by envisioning the games she hoped to be playing again.
“Every day I was telling myself that this was going toward the end goal and that the end goal is going to be better than right now is,” she said.
After recovering, Bouton was given the OK to resume some activity in December.
“My surgeon told me that I could go back to doing some things but not everything,” she said with a laugh. “To me, it sounded like I could go back to everything.”
Bouton was finally given the green light after a round of tests and X-rays in February confirmed the improved condition of her spine and an MRI revealed less cerebral fluid near her spine. She was able to play softball in the spring, and then she got to work trying to match her brother Gavin’s achievement last year by earning varsity time in soccer as a freshman.
“I had to meet his standard,” she said.
Bouton still has limitations — she has to avoid weightlifting maneuvers like dead lifts that could put too much strain on her spine — and more tests and procedures could be in her future. But she said those thoughts are far from her mind as she dives back into the year-round sports calendar.
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“My dad gave me a big hug after my first high school soccer game and said he was so proud to see me back out there,” Bouton said. “It’s been so nice to hear from all of my soccer and softball teammates and all of the parents of my friends be like, ‘I’m so happy that our Maeve is back.’”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter.