If anybody needs more excitement at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2024, ask one determined Illinois youngster who will be on the flightline this week. She not only survived a medical emergency on Sunday evening, but returned to AirVenture on Monday morning. She and her family shared their unexpected hospital trip with AirVenture Today while riding the tram past the Warbirds, less than 12 hours after leaving the hospital.
Jocelyn and Ryan Sotman live near St. Louis (“On the Illinois side,” Jocelyn noted precisely) with their daughter Payton, sons John and James, and their toddler Nora. On Saturday, they drove six hours to AirVenture and set up camp with their uncle, who had arrived separately. The kids were particularly eager to watch the air shows, visit the museum, and inspect the airplanes on the flightline. But within a few hours, their carefully crafted plans began to come off the rails.
“It was Sunday morning,” Ryan explained. “Payton had a little bit of a bellyache when we were down at breakfast.” With four children, somebody always has something, so the adults initially didn’t pay too much attention to Payton’s discomfort. The entire family loaded up their blue canvas wagon and walked down to the flightline. It was then they noticed Payton was not enjoying the day as she usually did.
“She just wanted to lay around. She didn’t want to watch anything,” Jocelyn recalled. “When we went back to the campsite for lunch, we started realizing that something might not be right.”
As they discussed Payton’s malaise, Jocelyn pushed on Payton’s tummy a bit. Payton reacted vigorously. “She really jumped,” Ryan noted. “We started doing some Googling and called some aunts. We began to realize it might be appendicitis.
They quickly left the campground and drove to the hospital in Oshkosh. By midafternoon, the emergency room staff had ordered blood tests and everyone was concerned when those results indicated “really high white blood cells,” Ryan said. A subsequent CAT scan clearly showed Payton had an inflamed appendix. “We didn’t know you could see that in a scan, but they can these days,” Jocelyn said. “It was just at a very early stage. We caught it very early, which was good.”
The Oshkosh hospital did not have a pediatric surgeon available for the surgery, so Payton and her family were transferred to the hospital in Neenah, where a team was on standby. They accommodated Payton easily, and the successful surgery was completed late in the evening.
“The doctors and everybody were super kind,” Payton said, unphased by the entire experience. “I’ve been in a hospital before but I’ve never had a surgery. I was kind of nervous at first, but then I went right to sleep.”
Both Jocelyn and Ryan were amazed at the outcome. “Afterwards, they came out to us and said, ‘Hey, she had the surgery. She’s good. Let her go home, get some rest.’ So we did.” The family returned to their campsite at about midnight Sunday.
“I felt pretty relieved, actually, when the doctor said the surgery went well,” Jocelyn said. “I was happy Payton was able to come home — to our campsite, actually.”
As we stepped off the tram, Payton said she was tired but not uncomfortable. “I kind of felt my belly. I can barely feel it, because of the medicine they gave me,” she said without drama. “I woke up this morning and got some more medicine. Better than yesterday,” she concluded with a smile.
“She’s been spoiled today, but she’s bouncing back,” her dad said about Payton’s recovery. “We’ve got this wagon for the little kids, and she’s been in it the entire day. Now the little ones are going to ride and she can walk a bit.”