Leopold team rallies around mother who underwent surgery to remove tumors

Deborah Bueter, left, and her daughter Allison share an interest in volleyball, as each has played for Leopold's high school volleyball team. (Fred Lynch) [Click to enlarge]

Deborah Bueter will be forced to stay home instead of traveling to the state tourney.

Deborah Bueter was unable to see Leopold earn a berth in the state volleyball tournament Saturday because she was recovering from a surgery to remove cancerous tumors from her liver.

But Bueter, a member of the Wildcats volleyball team in the early 1970s and the mother of current senior Allison Bueter, still was able to watch Leopold's Class 1 sectional win over Bell City the following day from her hospital room in St. Louis.

Allison visited her and brought along the tape of the match.

"I really wanted to watch the Bell City game and see how exciting that was," Deborah said. "It made me feel so good. It brings tears to my eyes just watching the kids and even when they had a bad play, they'd just fight back and keep digging until they finally won.

"I was so glad to see her [Allison]. She looked just so tired and I said, 'School is just going to be so much fun on Monday when you guys get back to together again.'"

For Deborah, Allison and the rest of the Bueter family, it has been a difficult year.

Deborah, who was diagnosed with rectal cancer in September 2006, had her second surgery in the past year last Tuesday. The first was Feb. 2, when tumors were removed from her rectum and the lymph nodes in the groin of her left leg.

Allison, a middle hitter, has had to deal with her mother's illness while continuing with her own life and role on the team. Additionally, Allison was involved in a car accident with some friends the Friday before practice started this season and has been sidelined at times due to muscle spasms in her back. She did not start this past weekend because her back was hurting.

But Allison said she is ready for the 33rd annual volleyball state tournament at the UCM Multipurpose Building in Warrensburg on Friday and Saturday.

Her mother, who returned home from the hospital Wednesday, will not be in attendance because she is still recovering from her latest operation. But Allison said she is excited to play and will be thinking about her mother and calling home with scores and summaries whenever she gets a chance.

"I know it has to be hard on her because her mom is a big fan," Leopold coach Sandy Davis said. "But Allison is a strong girl and she's not letting it get her down and she's doing it for her mom."

Like mother like daughter

Deborah, who graduated from Leopold in 1972, was a hitter like her daughter is now. She said she played on the same team as the mother of another important senior on this year's squad, Maddy Hutchings, who led the Wildcats in kills last Saturday.

"Maddy's mom could jump a little higher, so she was the No. 1 spiker," Deborah said, chuckling. "We now laugh about how we played volleyball together and we were both spikers and our daughters are playing together and now they call them hitters.

"It's kind of neat. It would be kind of neat to play against them, but now that I've been diagnosed with cancer and things, I couldn't be into sports."

Allison's mother played a big role in introducing her to the game. She said that like many girls in Leopold, she began playing volleyball when she was in the fifth grade, but before that Deborah took her to several camps.

"They are both really interested in sports," said Deborah's husband and Allison's father, Anthony Bueter. "It's a lot of different sports, but right now, it is volleyball. In the spring, it is softball."

Allison said that she and her mother have a connection with sports and other activities.

"We watch the Cardinals and stuff together, and always joke around together and go shopping and stuff, pretty much like any mom and daughter would do," she said.

Cheering her former first-graders

When Allison calls home this weekend with scores and game summaries, Deborah will be interested in how all the girls are doing, not just her daughter.

Deborah spent 30 years as a first-grade teacher in Leopold. She retired at the end of the 2006 school year, only months before her diagnosis. She had many of the girls from the team in her class and has grown to know them all well.

"Maddy [Hutchings] wasn't in my class, but I think all the rest of them were," Deborah said of the seniors. "It was a lot of fun, and then to see them grow up and everything and to turn into the fine young ladies they have, I'm so proud of them and I think they'll be good representatives of our school and our community [at state]."

When the girls won this past weekend, they all called Deborah on her cell phone from the bus back to Leopold. Deborah also has a daughter Janice, a junior, who sometimes keeps statistics for the volleyball team.

"Everyone on the bus ride home screamed into the phone, 'Hey we're going to state' and she was really excited," Allison said. "She could hear us all in the background. She was real excited and she wanted to know all of what happened."

Each of the girls on the team also wrote a message on a card that was waiting for Deborah when her surgery ended Tuesday. She in turn sent a card back to the team congratulating the girls on their latest victory.

Difficult times

Anthony said the time when Deborah felt the worst was during the summer. Deborah did begin to feel better as the school year began and she was able to attend most of the matches until districts. There were times when she would return home from St. Louis, where she underwent chemotherapy, eat a sandwich then head to a match.

Deborah will not be able to make the trip to Warrensburg this weekend because she has a fairly large incision from the surgery and she does not want to risk an infection.

She knows her daughter will have fun and she'll have fun later in the week when Allison brings home the videotapes of the matches.

"I told my daughter I'll be a cheerleader from the couch at home," she said. "And they'll keep in touch with me on the phone.

"It's an honor to be able to go and to know all your practices and all your sweat and all your soreness is paying off for you and to be able to experience that because that's the coolest thing. I'm just so proud of them. I can't wait to watch the videos and I want to watch the game again with Bell City and I haven't seen the one with Gideon. So thank goodness for videotapes."