Personal Narrative: My Journey With UI Children's Hospital

Great Essays
How do you summarize 16 years of life into a few minutes? Especially the life of a medically fragile child. I’m going to do my best. Our journey with UI Children’s Hospital began 16 years ago when our daughter Reagen was born. She was transferred to UI Children’s Hospital from our local hospital when she was three days old. Our pediatrician thought she had a slight heart murmur and wanted us to get it checked out with a routine echocardiogram. He said make sure you take your car seat as you will need it take her home later that afternoon. Little did we know that our journey was just beginning!!!

They transported her by ambulance and we followed. By the time we got to Iowa City she had stopped breathing twice. We got to 2JCW and the nurse handed Reagen to me to try to feed and she stopped breathing in my arms. They rushed her over to the NICU and within an hour they had come out with the words you never want to hear about you newborn baby. You daughter has a
…show more content…
It was difficult for us to see her go through this, but we know Reagen was strong. We saw many ups and downs, sometimes on a day-by-day basis, and we focused on the positives that each day brought.

Reagen has overcame many obstacles in the past three years. She has had to relearn to walk, talk, eat, and how to become a sassy teenager.

Every time Reagen has been hospitalized a University of Iowa Children’s Hospital she is always treated like she was the only patient at the hospital. She has always had nurses and doctors that treat her with the utmost respect. Nothing has been hidden from her they have always told her what exactly was happening and what was going to happen next.

We still to this day do not know who was selfless enough to donate their child organs so others to live, but we will be eternally in grateful that they made that choice. Our daughter would not be able to stand here next to me if it had not been for their

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Mia Gonzalez Case Study

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages

    (CNN)Mia Gonzalez spent the first 3½ years of her life missing out. She had to skip day care and dance classes because she constantly had colds and pneumonia. When Mia could go out and play, she was easily winded and took multiple asthma medications to try to help her breathing. After about 10 hospital stays, doctors realized that Mia had a malformation in her aorta, the vessel that pumps blood from the heart. The 4-year-old would need an operation to close off the part of her aorta that was putting pressure on her windpipe and making it hard to breathe, swallow and get rid of phlegm when she got a cold.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It was my first day of training. UCSD Medical Center (or whatever the name is). First stop: Emergency Room. As I walked inside I saw doctors and nurses bustling about. To my left a resident was stitching up a bicyclist who had been in an accident.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I have since gotten to know this little 7-year-old girl, Zoey, and have been able to provide hope and comfort to her family throughout the whole process. Zoey is home-schooled and does not have many friends. Kids made fun of her for wearing pull-ups in public school. From this experience, she and I have become best friends. I was able to visit her in the hospital and we even made a bucket list of what she wants to do with her new mitrofanoff.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Every time she sees someone she knows, she will welcome them with a big hug and she will keep screaming their name until she is told to be quiet. She does act a bit churlish, but she has a caring heart. Amber is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. Amber loves her sister so much and if something bad happened to her sister, Amber would go and hug her and ask if she is ok. When Amber 3 ½ months and in the incubator, her mom just looked at her and started crying, because she thought it wasn’t fair for her 2 little girls to basically be stuck in a box for the first 6 months of their lives, Amber gave her the biggest smile she has ever seen, and that’s when my aunt knew things were actually looking up for once.…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Hi, my name is Rhonda Galloway-Jones married for twenty years, and I have one son and two daughters. I love spending time with my family, and I love to shop. My chosen field here at Kaplan University is Human Service with an emphasis on Child Welfare and Family. I have over fifteen years of experience working with children in my home as a childcare provider and at daycare centers. I have been strengthening these skills by volunteering to help families in the community.…

    • 83 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During my work in the public health arena with the Ottawa Civic Hospital, I experienced a leadership role while working with multiple stakeholders. While working with staff members at the hospital, I practiced transparency in conducting discrete negotiations in staff meetings. The challenge of communicating complex issues pertaining to health care required a multitude of leadership skills, which include the identification of common goals amongst partners while maintaining the alignment of objectives and resources. Working in a public health setting required patience, teamwork and interdependence, all of which encourage dedication to long-term and sustainable prevention. My leadership skills in this experience taught me the valuable lesson of…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 I eagerly went to my first Pediatric clinical site. I was nervous as always, but once I entered the Meyer site I realize I was more so in a delightful heaven. I always had a special place in my heart for children with special needs or any congenital anomalies. So to see the kids and how they interact with one another as well as how "normal" they were with their learning abilities. No children received medication during my clinical visit, although a few was said to receive medication by their parents in the morning or before bedtime.…

    • 220 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The insidious events that led up to my baby sister being in the ICU of a children's hospital started with simple stomach pains. To begin with, we were not too concerned…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I work at the local Fareway here in Indianola and every Monday and Friday a couple from the COC comes and buys lots of food for kids in foster homes. It was a rainy Monday night around 6 p.m. and the couple came in to buy their groceries for the kids as usual. I was standing there bagging other people's groceries and taking them out for them. When I came back in, I had to bag all of the couples groceries for the kids in foster homes.…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Apert Syndrome Essay

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages

    During my nursing career, I cared for a six month old infant who was diagnosed with Apert Syndrome. This was my first time hearing about the disorder. As I grew closer to the child, I learned more about his condition. This was a very sad case for me because the child was placed in foster care due to his family’s inability to complete the room in at the hospital. In this case, the child died because his trach came out.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Katie, I can also relate because when I first started my childcare business, I fell on some hard times and needed some assistance to make ends meet. However, I was denied because my status was self-employed. I then had to keep my faith and know that this was just temporary. After five months, my center was full to capacity and had a waiting list. The whole Human Resources Administration is a double standard.…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    This summer I did my internship at Miller Children’s Hospital. I had a great experience where I was able to apply my knowledge and skills. This fall I am back at Miller and I am ready to learn more and get the hands on practice I need to be successful in my career. Some of my fears are approaching new people and even though it seems very repetitive of meeting new people I think it’s difficult sometimes building rapport. Sometime I am just scared of not being able to build the connection with my clients.…

    • 256 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She got to go home but then she still coughed a lot so she went back. The doctors took a cat scan and found out that she had lung cancer. I am thankful that the doctors did a cat scan and found out that she had cancer.…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a child, having rules to follow wasn’t unheard of with my family. There was always a way to behavior with friends/family, at school, at home and out in the street. Often I found myself getting into trouble because I didn 't listen and also the fact that I always found some kind of way to slipping out of having to doing something that I knew I was supposed to do. But out of all the people in my family my mom was the strictest. When expectations set high, not meaning them meant my siblings and I typical had a week long cleaning punishments along with handing over all toys, games, and light up sneakers; about three times a week this happened to me.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Right as the kidney came in she flat-lined. Her blood wasn 't being filtered properly and it was causing her to poison herself. There was nothing that I could do; her other vital organs had been…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays