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By Daniella Gray
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For months, a 3-year-old's symptoms were put down to a lingering childhood illness.
But when the once cheerful Penelope Dunn stopped playing, stopped eating and struggled to catch her breath, her parents realized something far more serious was unfolding.
Courtney Sherwood and Thomas Dunn told Newsweek their daughter Penny first became unwell around Christmas 2025.
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Like many young children, she developed what seemed to be an ordinary cold. But unlike a typical winter bug, it never fully went away.
"Over the next few months, she had started coughing so much at night that she was being sick and lived with a sick bowl in her bed for a couple of months," Courtney said.
As the months passed, Penny's symptoms gradually worsened.
Courtney took her to the doctor twice during May and June after the vomiting became more frequent and began affecting her appetite.
She rapidly lost three kilograms in one month, Courtney said.
Initially, doctors believed Penny was suffering from a common childhood illness.
She was prescribed antibiotics after developing a temperature and was later given inhalers when her persistent cough continued.
"They did all the checks and couldn't hear anything was wrong," Courtney said. "Because she was coughing so much and had been for so long, they put it down to asthma "
But Courtney knew something wasn't right.
"I realized it was more serious when she stopped wanting to play; when she wouldn't even eat her favorite things because she was scared of being sick," she said.
Just weeks later, Penny's condition deteriorated dramatically.
On June 29, she attended nursery for what would be her first sports day.
Although she took part, she became breathless after completing a single lap of the playground.
Hours later, Penny suffered two episodes that appeared seizure-like and was rushed to hospital.
That same night, she was placed on life support.
Doctors later diagnosed her with dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease that affects the heart muscle and monomorphic ventricular tachycardia, a potentially life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm.
A machine took over the work of her heart and lungs as medical teams fought to save her life.
Despite their efforts, Penny's body began shutting down.
Only eight days after being placed on life support, the family was told she had suffered catastrophic brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen.
Penny passed away in Courtney's arms.
"We still don't have any answer as to why Penny's heart was poorly in the first place because the tests are so extensive," Courtney said. "They said it is likely she had a spelling mistake in her DNA which meant her heart was going to end up this way no matter what we did."
The parents said they are "lucky" to have not found that Penny had passed away in her sleep from a cardiac arrest at home when they weren't aware anything was wrong.
While Courtney continues to seek answers, she wants people to remember Penny not for her illness but for who she was.
"She was what you would call 'the life of the party,'" Courtney said. "Everyone she was around had a smile on their face whether that was from something kind she did, something cheeky she said, or from just her being her."
Penny had recently become a big sister to Bobby and loved dinosaurs. She could count to 30, recite the days of the week and months of the year, and was endlessly curious about the world around her.
"She was my best friend, truly," Courtney said. "I miss her so, so deeply. I miss her putting her cheesy feet in my face, I miss her voice saying 'mommy,' I even miss the toddler tantrums. I just miss her so much."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Sirena Bergman and Emma Lee-Sang
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