Pey Pey's Place: This Weeks Long Update

Get comfortable, this may be my longest post yet.

After a busy weekend, Peyton continues do well. We have an appointment with her Doctor on the 17th to follow-up her trach removal. It seems to be healing well, but it doesn’t seem to be completely closed. If that’s the case he will schedule a day surgery to close it up, however, that may not be a bad thing as he can cosmetically repair some of the scar tissue from the trach. So there will be more information on this next week. Peyton has become a real handful, she has become so active and yet Yolanda still seems to get things done around the house, I don’t know how she does it. Peyton still has the G-Tube, and is receiving some of her nutrition in that manner and she is eating well, like licking the cheese from between the crackers, and the cream from the Oreo’s leaving the cookies (I may have taught her that, but I eat the cookies. I guess this lesson will have a second class and maybe some homework) but she loves cheese. She seems to get frustrated by the feeding tube as she only has about 6 feet of tube to maneuver around. But when the pump alarm goes off signaling the end of the feed you should see her light up with excitement. She starts pointing to the pump and tries to help you disconnect the tube from her tummy. However, that’s not always a help, for example, last Sunday, Yolanda went to get a well deserved massage leaving me with the tike and as she was playing on the bed, I went to sleep and was awoken by Peyton crying and holding her tube. That’s right, she didn’t disconnect it from the port, she just pulled it out of her stomach and it wasn’t even done yet, so milk squirts out every few seconds. To give you an idea of what this is all about, the port has a balloon, on the end that is inflated in her tummy, to keep it in place, which is the diameter of a swollen nickel, not quite a quarter, and a hole in her tummy the size of a very thin pencil. This is the same principal as the birth of a baby, all be it on a smaller scale and with the exception of the part of the anatomy that was skillfully designed to stretch, accommodating the head and shoulders, this part of the tummy wasn’t designed to stretch but apparently with some force will. So who can blame her for crying? That would make most sane people cry. To fix this, you deflate the balloon, put the tube back in her tummy and re-inflate it and she is good to go. It seems to me that this may be only the fourth time it has been pulled out, which isn’t too bad over the 18 months she’s had it. The way she bounces around the bed getting so close to the edge, I’m really surprised she hasn’t pulled it out more often on her way off the side plummeting to the floor head first. Now if you ask her about it she just points to it and signs ‘hurt’, but she doesn’t seem to bothered by it. Once that’s gone she will have total Freedom and if that’s ever threatened she will cling to her guns and religion, obviously, while wearing lipstick.

Disclaimer: Okay, by the urging of my wife, I update with commentary that is more of a political nature. She is truly against me using this blog as my personal political soapbox, but after this weekend, she granted me an exception because she thought readers of this blog would be interested in hearing how this past weekend went, so, hear it goes.

I have to back up to last Wednesday night and the speech by Sarah Palin at the RNC, is she not the best thing that has happened to Republican politics or politics in general since Ronald Reagan? Blown away! When she said that special needs kids “will have a friend and advocate in the White House”, makes a grown man weep openly. I told Yolanda, before her speech, the McCain/Palin ticket would claim the “White House”, but after the speech, I told her that not only will they win, it won’t even be close. On Thursday we watched the McCain speech, not as impressive, but I think everyone knew what we would be getting. His personal stories were incredible as I am not sure I’ve ever heard them from him before. I still feel guilty I never enlisted.

We planned and already had our tickets for the McCain/Palin Rally in Colorado Springs last Saturday morning. Last Thursday, they were out of tickets, and 10,000 were expected. Gates opened at 9:00AM and the program scheduled to begin at 11:00AM. We got up early Saturday morning, picked up Yolanda’s mom, and drove the 65 miles to the Springs. Hannah didn’t go, soccer game, and I couldn’t change her mind. Although she committed to play on this team, it’s good she was there. But this event was huge, even bigger than I or the rest for the family had expected. I digress, this event is at the Colorado Springs Airport in one of the hangers, so we get close and get into the traffic to park and we are there. The line was probably a half to three quarters of a mile long and by the time we got in, we had walked well over a mile not quickly as the Secret Service was screening everybody. Metal detectors but no xray, they were hand searching everything. Yolanda had a bag of ice with a can of pop and a bottle of water neither of which were opened. The Security Detail would not let the bottle or can in but we got to keep the bag of ice (they did sell water inside for only $1.00 it was $4.00 at the Obama show) couldn’t quite understand them keeping the bottle of water and not the bag of ice, but anyway. We get in, the stage is in the hanger but most people are outside and its clear Colorado skies and getting warm. Did I mention it was all standing room only? Except for Peyton, we brought the stroller. So on the runway side of the hanger, there is John McCain’s Plane and a second plane which was obviously just acquired and was painted McCain/Palin and must be Sarah’s plane. By this time the roped in area was over half full and just by standing there you couldn’t see anything. Yolanda went to get some water and she said we should move back because you can see the stage better. So we did and ended up by the back railing, which is all that separated us from the planes, that and 100 feet and tons of security. So we wait, local people who are running for various offices, are speaking, and we wait some more. At 12:15 we are told 5 more minutes until they arrive, but that was more like 25 minutes when the motorcade arrived. More Police and Swat arrived including a dog, which they used to check a bag near the plane. I saw John McCain a few months ago a block from my office downtown. I walked over just to see if I would be able to see him and sure enough his motorcade arrived and he got out and went into the hotel for his speech. There was security there but nothing like at this rally, were talking Secret Service all over the place (although, it really wasn’t much of a secret), snipers on rooftops, this was the real deal.

At this point as McCain and Palin begin, they fired up the generators behind us to start the planes so being in the back of this crowd we couldn’t hear much of anything. However, I expected it was going to be remarks right out of their speeches from the convention, nothing new, so I wasn’t to concerned about missing that part. Yolanda and her mom moved up closer to hear the speeches, and Aaron and I hung back to keep our space along the fence. I knew they would board the planes after the speeches and we had a front row seat to see that. Little did we know that not only did they walk the rope line from the hanger to the plane but also the rope line along the back. We all got to shake hands with John McCain, Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin. John looked a little pasty, needs some sun, Cindy looks a little older than she does on TV but still very attractive and Sarah, I think she may be this countries answer to Princess Diana. We took lots of pictures, fought off the crowds who didn’t have our foresight, but still wanted in on the action. As all this was unfolding, a Photographer thought he was going, to walk right up to were we were standing and take our spot. He was rather pushy and when he got up to me and next to Yolanda, she said “No you don’t”. I told him he wasn’t getting past me. Yolanda went on to explain how long we had been waiting and that he wasn’t going to get past her and should go somewhere else. He had a press pass, but I think he was going to try to get pictures from our prospective, but not in our spot, he kind of put his hands up and headed back out. I thought for a second, Yolanda might just unload on this guy. That’s my girl.

So, you are probably wondering what happened to Peyton in all of this. She was there, right in the thick of it, she did great, except she only wanted to be held by her mommy and didn’t want me to hold her. Yolanda’s back was killing her and with the crowds, there just was not a good way to get her right up front to see these people. Yolanda stayed behind me to protect her, just keep her safe and was still able to get her hand through to shake hands. Peyton, really was a good sport, will one day be able to tell her kids about how she was there. Kind of like the last couple of Titanic survivors, they don’t recall a single thing but they were there. These are some Peyton’s latest pictures and a few from our brush with greatness.

Hannah helping Peyton eat soup