HARTLAND, Wis. — Lake Country Lutheran's Samuel Buchholz is your typical teenager.
He loves working out and playing sports, but it was nearly taken away from him when he was a sophomore in high school.
“I knew I had pain, but I didn't know how bad it was,” he explained.
Buchholz played football for Lake Country Lutheran his freshman year. He thought he tweaked his back when trying to catch a football during practice, but as the months progressed, the pain never went away.
He went to the doctor in May 2023, where he learned the pain he was experiencing was more severe than just a pulled muscle.
“It was immediately like, 'you must have surgery or else next spring in like nine months you're going start to go paralyzed,'” he shared.
After getting an x-ray on his back, doctors diagnosed Buchholz with severe scoliosis.
“The top was curved at a 50-degree angle, and the bottom was curved at a 39-degree angle,” Lindsey Buchholz, Samuel’s mother, explained.
Because of the severity, doctors quickly scheduled surgery for July 12, 2023.
“In those 40 days (leading up to surgery), I really tried to do it all by myself,” Samuel recalled. “I was only relying on myself for this, and I was super anxious, and I was so scared.”
While doctors already ruled out football, there was still uncertainty about whether or not Samuel would ever be able to compete in other sports like wrestling.
Watch: Samuel Buchholz's faith-fueled victory over scoliosis
He poured himself into the gym as a way to escape from the unknown, but still struggling to find peace, he turned towards his faith.
“I was doing these workouts, and on that 40th day, I just said, you know what? I'm going to give it to God,” Samuel smiled. “Then I went into the surgery room, and all my nerves, my anxieties, just fell away.”
Samuel’s surgery was slated to last anywhere from six to 10 hours, which would entail fusing 13 vertebrae with two rods and 26 screws.
“I just kept like praying over and over in my head like please just let things go well in this surgery,” Samuel’s mother remembered. “Please let him come out of it.”
Samuel’s surgery took place at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and lasted eight hours. There was a screen in the waiting room, which notified Lindsey and her husband when the surgery was complete.
“I have a picture still of Lindsey when it went to green – like he's in recovery – and she instantly threw her arms up in the air and was like, yes!” Travis Buchholz, Samuel’s dad, smiled. “We hugged each other, so it was – that was a big relief.”
However, the hard days were far from over, with Samuel having to learn how to walk again.
“I was so worried about him,” Lindsey recalled. “He wasn't mobile. He wasn't able to take care of himself. He was just in excruciating pain, even with medication.”
With faith on his side, Samuel approached the next 12 weeks like a wrestling match, always looking for the next best move.
“For him to learn to take those first couple steps again, I knew he had it because he prepared himself for this, and he's putting his faith in the right person,” Travis expressed.
Four months removed from surgery, Samuel was cleared to return to the wrestling mat.
“I didn't think for a second he wouldn't try,” Lake Country Lutheran wrestling head coach Chris Irish stated. “I knew he would try, but would he be able to be successful?”
For Samuel, it was never a question. He pointed back to one of his favorite verses Galatians 6:9, which helped him both pre- and post-surgery.
“The verse was ‘Do not grow weary and doing good for at the proper time, you will reap a harvest,” Samuel stated.
That harvest came this past winter as a junior after qualifying for the WIAA State Individual Wrestling Tournament. Buchholz went 2-2 at State in the Division 2 138-pound class. He is now eager to make the podium next season.
“I had to walk away from the mat right away because I started crying,” Travis expressed.
Samuel’s story is even more remarkable from a wider lens. While originally born in Honduras, Lindsey and Travis Buchholz began the adoption process when he was eight months old. He was brought to the United States two months later but wasn’t legally adopted until first grade.
“He may not have had the opportunity to get the medical care in Honduras that he had the opportunity to here, and so things could have medically turned out very different for him if we had not been able to adopt him,” Lindsey explained. “Our family would also look completely different, and thank goodness it looks the way it does.”
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
