Penelope Ann Barragan

Penelope had a fever of 103 on Saturday night. I called the overnight urgent care and they said to take her straight to the ER. So I took her to the ER at the Boulder City hospital, but that facility is kind of a joke. They should just have a sign on the door that says, "If you have a sick kid, take them straight to the peds ER at Siena." That sure would've saved us time and money. After all was said and done, they did nothing for us and told us to go to Siena. But by then it was 2:00 in the morning and Penelope's temperature had dropped to 99, so I decided instead to go home. Her fever spiked again though, and I took her to the Siena ER on Sunday evening. They did a septic workup on her - tested her urine, blood, and spinal fluid - and found bacteria in her urine. She was admitted to the hospital for 2 days of IV antibiotics and close monitoring. But the two days turned into two more when they found that her blood culture had been contaminated. They had to retest her blood. It came out clean, so we knew that she only had a UTI. But they were very thorough in making sure her kidneys and bladder, etc, were working properly. After 4 days in the hospital, she was discharged and we got to come home. It was an exhausting week! I felt guilty being away from the kids, and when I came home during the days to be with them, I felt guilty being away from Penelope. We were hugely fortunate though that Chris's boss told him not to come back to work until Penelope was out of the hospital. And there was a huge outpour of offers to help and pray for us. So yeah it was a tough week of worrying and being exhausted, but we felt really blessed through it all. Penelope was so peaceful and happy the whole time. Every staff member who came into our room - from the doctors to the housekeeping - said how sweet and peaceful she was. And she smiled a ton for people. She had a follow-up appointment this morning, and she's as good as new. Love that tiny girl.