Pettus in Pittsburgh

Think about the possibility of having a wish granted.
What would you do?
Would you jump at the chance for a trip to Disneyland, go surfing and scuba diving off the coast of Hawaii or spend a day as a movie star in Hollywood?
Dakota Pettus was in that position, with the opportunity to have his dream come true.
His first instinct was to turn it down.
“At that point I thought, well, I’m not super sick,” said the 18-year-old Dunkirk resident, who has cystic fibrosis. “I mean, I haven’t been in the hospital or anything, so I was like, I don’t feel like taking a wish from somebody else, a kid who’s super sick and younger than I am. I’m not going to do it.”
But that’s not how it works with Make-A-Wish Foundation. A young man in Indiana accepting a wish doesn’t take one away from an ailing child in Nebraska.
So on Oct. 30, Pettus attended a Pittsburgh Steelers practice, and two days later he was in the stands his first NFL game to watch his favorite team play the Cincinnati Bengals at Heinz Field.
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Already the parents of five boys, Vicki and Raymond Pettus didn’t plan on having any more children.
Vicki underwent tubal ligation — more commonly know as having her tubes tied. That was that.
But the couple had second thoughts. And two years later Vicki had the procedure reversed, allowing her to become pregnant with their sixth son — Dakota.
All was not well with Dakota, however. During his first three months, he was constantly sick.
Doctors kept telling his parents he had colic, a condition that leads to babies continually crying for hours. Vicki and Raymond knew better.
“We had raised other kids and we knew that he didn’t have colic,” Vicki said. “There was something else wrong with him.”
They finally found someone — Dr. Joyce Fischer at Bluffton Regional Medical Center — who could given them an answer.
Dakota had cystic fibrosis.
Great, the parents thought, just give him the medication to take care of the problem.
“And she said, ‘No, this is not something where we can just give him a pill and it’ll be OK,” said Vicki. “She told us, ‘We’re sending him to Riley.’”
She also told them their son might only live to be 12 years old.
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Dakota spent six weeks at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis.
When he was discharged, doctors told Vicki and Raymond their son would need to be hospitalized for about two weeks every year in order to go have a precautionary course of antibiotics. The possibility that their youngest son might never become a teenager still loomed over them as well.
But Dakota proved the doctors wrong.
He’s never been hospitalized again. And at 18, he’s far surpassed the initial expectations.
“Luckily I’m one of the few that haven’t had to be hospitalized, since I was a baby, with it,” said Dakota, a 2015 Jay County High School graduate who is now taking classes at Ivy Tech, noting that the prognosis for the disease has changed drastically during his lifetime. “That’s mostly because my parents were strict.”
Cystic fibrosis, commonly known as CF, is a genetic disease that leads to a thick buildup of mucus in the lungs and other organs. It affects about 30,000 in the United States.
It causes difficulty breathing, like a severe form of asthma. And those who have it are more susceptible to infection because the excess mucus can be a breeding ground for bacteria. Illnesses that others shake off with just rest or a round of antibiotics can be far more severe.
So when Dakota says his parents were strict, it’s in a different way than most.
Vicki and Raymond wanted to protect their son from getting sick, if at all possible. So when his friends were outside playing football on a chilly fall day, Dakota was kept inside.
“I’d fight with them,” he said, “but I realize now that they did everything they could to make sure I stayed healthy.”
Each day includes two 30-minute treatments in which he wears a vest that vibrates in order to help break up and thin the excess mucus in his lungs. He also uses a nebulizer to help fight the bacteria.
“I will do it ’til the day I take my last breath,” Dakota said.
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Vicki didn’t know her son would fare as well as he has. So when he was 8 she submitted his name to Make-A-Wish, an organization that grants wishes for children ages 2-and-a-half to 17 who have a life-threatening illness.
She got a quick response that said Make-A-Wish was not accepting CF patients. But in the years since, that has changed, leading to the call Dakota received about two years ago letting him know he had been selected.
After he learned his wish would not be taking an opportunity away from another child, he had a decision to make. What would his wish be?
There could be only one answer. The Pittsburgh Steelers.
Dakota has been a fan of the Black and Gold for as long as he’s watched football. He followed in the footsteps of his father, who idolized Terry Bradshaw as the Hall of Fame quarterback was leading the team to four Super Bowls in the 1970s.
When the Steelers lose, Dakota has trouble sleeping.
“I mean, that’s been his favorite team for as long as I can remember,” said Vicki. “His whole room is Pittsburgh. Every Christmas, that’s all he’s ever asked for is Steelers stuff.”
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On Oct. 29, Vicki, Raymond, Dakota and his girlfriend, Jocelyn Huey, arrived in Pittsburgh. The next day, they were picked up at their hotel room and taken to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Performance Center, where the Steelers’ team building is located.
As they toured the building, they spotted a man walking the hallway in front of them. It was Art Rooney II.
They met the team’s president, who then offered them a special opportunity not normally available. He told them to check out the locker room.
“What Rooney says goes,” the tour guide told them.
Entering the locker room, they met kicker Shaun Suisham and quarterback Bruce Gradkowski. They chatted with the players, and Gradkowski decided to take over the tour.
They visited the weight room, and then headed outside to where the team was practicing.
As practice wound down, Gradkowski warned his visitor that he was about to be swarmed. Dakota was doubtful, thinking a handful of players might head his way.
“Sure enough, all the big dudes, defensive linemen and stuff, came up and swarmed me,” he said.
He found himself surrounded, taking pictures and getting autographs from virtually everyone on the roster. As the crowd dispersed, stars Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell strolled in his direction.
They brought more of the same with pictures and autographs, and then Brown, perhaps the best wide receiver in the game, pulled off his gloves. He signed them and handed them to Dakota. Then he glanced at Bell.
“And Le’Veon goes, ‘Hey, I ain’t gonna let you show me up,’” said Pettus of the running back. “He took his off and signed them too.”
“That was just awesome” said Vicki. “I cried. I cried when they did that. To see the smile on his face was just wonderful.”
Dakota met quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on the practice field as well, and then waited outside the locker room. There he connected with defensive end Stephon Tuitt, who played for his favorite college team, Notre Dame, and running back DeAngelo Williams.
Throughout his day, Dakota found that he didn’t talk much pro football. He discussed the Fighting Irish with Tuitt, shared his appreciation of Williams’ efforts to honor his mom by wearing pink to promote cancer awareness and chatted with Gradkowski about life in general.
“They said they appreciate when people don’t just look at them as pro athletes,” said Dakota. “You really don’t think about it that, hey, this guy is just another person. He’s just out there playing for your favorite football team. It was neat just to have a regular conversation with them.”
That time together meant a lot to Dakota, who also got to visit the room where Pittsburgh keeps the six Vince Lombardi trophies from its Super Bowl wins. It was also special to the Steeler players.
“I can’t thank God enough for putting me in a position to play 10 years in the NFL, but more importantly to have the platform where you can make a kid’s day,” said Gradkowski, a 10-year veteran who has not played in 2015 after dislocating a finger during the preseason. “I don’t feel that I’m anything special. … To kind of have that impact on someone’s life, shoot, that’s the least I could do.
“He was such a good kid. It was such a good, good time to be able to spend with them.
“Dakota probably made more of an impact on my life that day than I did on his.”
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Dakota, Vicki, Raymond and Jocelyn got to see the rest of Pittsburgh the next day, touring the city on a double-decker bus.
And then Sunday, Nov. 1, it was game day.
Dakota had attended a few Cincinnati Reds games, but had never seen an NFL team play in person.
“It’s a whole different experience when you’re at a game than watching it on TV because you get to see what goes on during halftime and you get to hear the fans and you get to be part of the experience,” said Dakota, who had also gotten a little inside information from Gradkowski about a flea flicker play the Steelers attempted during the game. “It was pretty cool.”
The game — a 16-10 Pittsburgh loss in which Bell suffered a season-ending knee injury — didn’t end the way Dakota would have liked. But it’s not the final score or the injury that he’ll remember about the weekend.
Instead, he carries with him the feeling of having men who are cheered for by thousands and watched by millions every week during the NFL season take the time to make him feel like a star.
“It meant a lot to me when Le’Veon and them came over and they posed for photos and gave me their autograph, because they didn’t have to do that,” Dakota said. “They could have just came over and said hi and walked away. …
“They know that they’re idolized by some people, and to be that person they focus their attention on for an hour and a half in one day, it really meant a lot.”