<p>oh woody how very sad. how is your daughter doing?</p>
<p>missypie et al----my s’s school had a dozen or so students with H1N1 last spring, all were not severe cases and all recovered. those schools that were affected last spring have had the opportunity to finetune their handling of students who become ill. My s’s school has coordinated a Flu Buddy program to help the students who become ill;</p>
<p>How can your Flu Buddy help you?</p>
<p>Get a flu shot and follow prevention guidelines to stay healthy to take care of you, if necessary.
Pick up a “flu kit” for you from Student Health with disposable thermometer, masks and over-the-counter medications.
Bring you food so you don’t have to go out for meals. (Dining Services offers “meals to go” as one option.)
Bring you materials you need to keep up with classes.
Call several times a day to see if you need anything.
Help your roommate find a place to stay until your fever is gone for 24 hours.
Stay at least 6 feet away from you unless you are wearing a mask.
Wash hands with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, on entering and leaving your room.</p>
<p>How can you make it easier for your Flu Buddy to help?
Recognize flu symptoms (fever of ≥100.0°F or 37.8°C with cough or sore throat) and call your “Flu Buddy” for assistance. Other flu symptoms may include chills, body aches, headache, runny/stuffy nose, fatigue, weakness, and diarrhea or vomiting.
Stay in your room as much as possible until your fever is gone for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication.
Wear a mask when your flu buddy is visiting or if you must leave your room. (If you are unable to wear a mask, stay at least 6 feet away from others.)
Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Dispose of tissues in a trash can and wash your hands immediately.
Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Wipe down commonly shared surfaces (such as door handles, desks, phones, keyboards) frequently with disinfectant wipes.
Stay in touch with your professors by phone or e-mail.
Request “meals to go” from Dining Services to make it easy for your flu buddy to bring you food.
Say “Thank you!” and be a “Flu Buddy” for them if needed.</p>
<p>Thanks lindz. D is OK. I actually think she had the flu. I’m a school nurse and had a sizable outbreak last spring at my school so I’m familiar with the symptoms. She has decided to skip a on-campus team party for this weekend. We video-chatted this afternoon and it was good to see that she looks quite healthy but still has that damn lingering cough!</p>
<p>woody, how very scary. S1 is surrounded by a serious swine flu outbreak in Rio. They opened school two weeks late and he says they keep cancelling classes because teachers are sick. He had a cough and felt sick a few weeks ago, but it didn’t materialize into anything serious. He is living alone at the moment so if he did get sick I’m not sure he would get the help he needs. I’m less worried about S2 just because he is at least in the U.S. so it just feels safer but your story really does leave a chill.</p>
<p>Wow… that’s is heartbreaking news, Woody. It’s one of those things where you’d like to think, “those kinds of things happen to other people,” when in reality you could be that person. I try not to worry about those things too much because really, there’s not a whole lot you can do besides the usual – wash your hands, etc, and get any kind of flu shot that’s out there. Apparently there will be a flu vaccine clinic set up outside of dining halls in the next few weeks, but if they have the Swine flu they aren’t supposed to go to the health center but instead contact their FYC/RA and perhaps their roommate will move out.</p>
<p>Son called last night to say he had stepped away from playing football. On the one hand it’s the first time he’s ever quit anything in his life. I am still not sure how I feel about it, but he didn’t feel like he clicked with some of the guys from the very beginning and of course, they are “ALL from this huge schools” on and on. Also, he’s taking a fairly ambitious schedule and as a science major he has a lab that his only option was to take it later in the afternoon so he literally had 15 minutes to get on to the field and be ready to go. </p>
<p>I mostly blame the transition time in having the football practices start essentially the same time as orientation. However, it would seem other kids managed it. But after spending two days off the field (due to a twisted knee), some other guy had already taken his spot and so I imagine he felt frustrated and inadequate. In that regard, I really get it. He wasnt recruited for sports and so he doesn’t really feel like he is letting anyone down or disappointing them. But still… he’s never quit anything, ever. So this is new territory for me. This said, we always knew he wanted to go to a school to learn first and had he gotten into his ED school, he wouldn’t have played sports at all. So we’ll see. I am working on backing off completely but man… it’s hard.</p>
<p>Makes me wonder: where does this need to be in the loop come from, and how much worse is it headed to become for future parents in our shoes? Just heard on the news that one of the local school district is putting in a computer access system where you can see what assignments your child is turning in or not. Seems to me that this merely creates over involved parents. And frankly, a kid should be allowed to take some personal responsibility on this stuff. If the kid is getting like c’s or having issue with getting homework done, then yes perhaps you bring the parents into the system. BUt for the regular kid who maybe messes up once or bombs a quiz – shouldn’t they be “allowed” to overcome that event of their own accord? I am just thinking whether or not every parent absolutely needs to know every time their kid turned in a late assignment. Whatever happened to the teacher pulling Johnny aside to say, you might be slipping before calling the parents into the conversation? I know it’s probably really helpful for some kids as an accountability thing, but for every kid? This is going to take helicopter parents to a whole new turbo level.</p>
<p>A tip for parents: Apparently it is not common knowledge to people living in residence halls with community bathrooms that is is in fact NOT acceptable to allow the opposite sex into your bathroom–remind your kids and remind them to report it if anyone else does it. I just got out of the shower to find I was alone in the bathroom with two drunk men! I was in such shock I didn’t think to call security until my mom yelled at me, I just sent an email to our floors RA. Needless to say now every RA in the building as well as campus security has been notified. I am sure I will be the floor rat now, as no one here is of legal drinking age and I went ahead and told the RAs that they said they “NEEDED” to be let in because they’d spilled wine on themselves-- there were obviously parties going on on our floor and I was hoping the RAs would be able to narrow down who did it. Ohhhh well. It never occurred to me that I needed to bring my pepper spray with me to the showers, lesson learned I guess.</p>
<p>It’s friday night… why are you home taking a shower? Second, Son’s schools floor bathrooms are co-ed. I understand floor decisions are sometimes made to make them separate, but apparently the rumor is it rarely works out like that. And I might be in the minority here, I don’t think telling on kids their first true weekend in college is going to be making you many friends, let alone acquaintances. I am hoping you are not deeming yourself floor monitor. All I am saying is that to be shocked that kids in college are drinking undersage is extremely naive. It is also fairly understood. While not cool for this to happen while you were in the shower and I certainly don’t know all the rules of your bathrooms, I am just thinking that a warning yell or some other sign of respect would have been nice and left it at that. Going off on the RA is a little reactionary in my opinion.</p>
<p>I wanted to give an update to all of you who were so encouraging and helpful when I was trying to deal with my D’s ultra-homesickness last week.</p>
<p>We got in touch with the woman whose job it is to help freshmen settle in, and she was fantastically helpful. She’s alerted D’s advisor (who arranged D’s work study job which just happens to be in her departmental office), all of her professors (one of whom apparently is famous for helping with this sort of thing), all of the RA’s in her building, and not one but two peer mentors. She said that D is “going to have to work very hard at staying isolated”, because she’s being approached and invited on a regular basis from quite a few sources. I felt much better after talking to her.</p>
<p>Our contacts from D are growing less frequent and less informative (a good thing, I think), but are uniformly upbeat. She’s dropped the negativity on facebook, continues to add college students as facebook friends, and is even getting a little chatty with them. She did tell me at one point that she understands that if she quits, her life back home would not be the same, and that her educational opportunities would be severely limited. If the homesickness is abating a bit, she may be working herself around to seeing her college as the lesser of two evils, and at the moment, that’s OK.</p>
<p>The best sign is that she’s joined one of the school’s dance groups. She’s danced since she was 3 years old, and there are few places on earth that are more comfortable for her than a studio. She signed up for 5 different numbers, so she is definitely not being half-hearted about it. Once she gets into regular rehearsals, I think it will be impossible for her to hold herself aloof from her fellow dancers.</p>
<p>For the moment, we are avoiding probing questions about how she’s doing in general and about her future plans. If, come November when it’s time to register for spring, she’s still up in the air, we’ll have to have those hard conversations, but I’m beginning to be cautiously optimistic that we may not have to after all.</p>
<p>One thing that really bothered me last week was the disconnect between her cheerfulness about specifics and her negativity about the whole. The woman at the college suggested that she might just be saving face – that it might be that she’s beginning to like it a little, but isnt’ yet ready to say that she was wrong about her initial reaction. Interesting theory, and it rings true. Best case (and this would be typical of D), by Christmas, she’ll be happy there and ready to say that we did the right thing in making her stay for the semester.</p>
<p>So it feels like things are on the upswing. Thank you again for all of your support.</p>
<p>oh Lasma sounds like your d’s school was so responsive…how nice to see. cute how they said she’d have to work hard at being isolated. must be nice to take a breath, knowing your daughter’s coming around. nice work mom…</p>
<p>“It’s friday night… why are you home taking a shower? Second, Son’s schools floor bathrooms are co-ed. I understand floor decisions are sometimes made to make them separate, but apparently the rumor is it rarely works out like that. And I might be in the minority here, I don’t think telling on kids their first true weekend in college is going to be making you many friends, let alone acquaintances. I am hoping you are not deeming yourself floor monitor. All I am saying is that to be shocked that kids in college are drinking undersage is extremely naive. It is also fairly understood. While not cool for this to happen while you were in the shower and I certainly don’t know all the rules of your bathrooms, I am just thinking that a warning yell or some other sign of respect would have been nice and left it at that. Going off on the RA is a little reactionary in my opinion.”</p>
<p>I was home taking a shower because it was 11 oclock at night, what difference does it make? I can’t BELIEVE you don’t think there’s a problem with drunk men being allowed into the ladies showers in the middle of the night. I don’t care that they were drinking AT ALL, I care that they were letting men into the bathrooms and mentioned that there were parties going on so that the girl endangering the entire floor could possibly be caught. That is not safe and it is against the rules. Let’s see how you like it when your daughter is naked in the bathroom with drunk men walking in, that is in NO way acceptable here. There are separate bathrooms for men and women with card key access that requires your key and your social security number to open and there are unisex bathrooms throughout the building that anyone can access without a key, and guests to the building are not to be without an escort-- she let them into the ladies room and then went back to her room, she wasn’t even there to make sure they weren’t doing anything wrong. I can’t believe any parent would be comfortable with drunk men wandering into their daughter’s showers in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>Great news, Lasma! I like the word hard at isolation remark as well. Fingers crossed for a happy Thanksgiving.
Modadunn - I good friend’s Dis at your son’s school and did the same thing with her sport - just wasn’t going to work for her. Excellent student and believe 1st thing she ever quit.</p>
<p>Lasma- Good to hear that things are turning around for your D.</p>
<p>Woody- It is indeed sad to hear about the young man who passed away. My heart goes out to his family.</p>
<p>Lindz-The Flu Buddy program sounds great. I hope more schools take that approach.</p>
<p>Great news Lasma. Glad to see things are looking up.</p>
<p>Modadunn: If this makes your son happy than what can it hurt. Sounds like it just wasn’t the right fit and it’s an awful lot of work to put in if it’s not for him at this school. I’m sure he’ll participate in something else. Are there intramurals - may be less time commitment and perhaps at a better time of the day for him. Still gets to play a sport he enjoys without all the “hassles”.</p>
<p>TwistedxKiss: I have a D and I think it depends on what the situation was. If they were just in there and didn’t make any attempt at anything remotely harmful to you I would hope that if my D was in that situation she would simply scold them and let it be. My D has the scolding gene from me and those poor guys would have been SOOO sorry to have met up with her. If they were “harmful” I would hope that she would scream at the top of her lungs. By the way my D is on the small side (size 2-4) but is a black belt in Taekwondo.</p>
<p>Twisted, I thought Modadunn’s comments were bizarre.</p>
<p>Modadunn, I’m so sorry about the football decision–not that it wasn’t necessarily the right decision for your son–but that I understand how hard it will be on you. An anecdote comes to mind that may help. One of my son’s friends was one of the super stars on our high school team, just a joy to watch. His father had been a big football star and died of a sudden heart attack when his son was a sophomore. His mother was very invested in football, both in memory of her husband and as a big personal fan. She even donated a new scoreboard to the high school. The son didn’t show any signs of burnout and had multiple offers from great programs in the spring/summer of his junior year. But in the fall, he decided he wanted to go to WVU (where he would not play). The mom blamed his interest in WVU on my son’s bad influence (likely true) and said it would happen “over her dead body”, his father would turn in his grave, this child WAS going to play football in college, was too smart to go to a third tier school, etc. After that outburst to us at one of the games (senior night I think), the mom got herself under better control, although did not totally let go of her expectations until the following spring. </p>
<p>The son is at WVU, loves it beyond belief, doesn’t regret giving up football, and she has come around 100% (wanting to tailgate with us like we are her new best friends). My point is that she went through a real grieving process before she could fully come to terms with his decision, but she and her son remain close, and it does seem to have worked out OK. Your son may be feeling very relieved right now with his decision or he may feel as conflicted as you are feeling. Feel free to vent her as much as you need so you can give him the support he may need. (Your post reminds me of how much I miss it too.)</p>
<p>“Twisted, I thought Modadunn’s comments were bizarre.”</p>
<p>I actually thought the comments were right on target. I have a daughter (and a son) and I think it really was a little of an over-reaction (although I don’t know the exact situation). If my daughter called me and told me this happened to her, my advice would NOT be to rat-out (to security) anyone having parties on the floor. I actually would ask her why she was taking a shower when there are obviously lots of parties going on around her - #1 there are bound to be drunk people roaming the halls, and #2 get out and have some fun!</p>
<p>My husband is in law enforcement and he was told (by college security at my daughter’s school when she was a freshman) that very often the first weekend of school is very wild. Lots of these kids are away for the first time, really over-partying. I totally agree with what Modadunn said, especially: I don’t think telling on kids their first true weekend in college is going to be making you many friends, let alone acquaintances. I am hoping you are not deeming yourself floor monitor. All I am saying is that to be shocked that kids in college are drinking undersage is extremely naive. It is also fairly understood.</p>
<p>Just my opinion.</p>
<p>^^^
Perhaps Modadunn was also reacting to the persistent thread hijacking. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Yay! It is raining in Texas. And boy, do we need it. </p>
<p>DH is out of town and I am planning a day of cleaning and de-cluttering. First on the recycling list is that pile of college brochures. I think it’s time to let go.</p>
<p>NM, in your honor I wil be very careful with my knees.</p>
<p>^^^^^^
Billy - I definitely agree. AND, as a PARENT with 2 in college with a little bit of experience under my belt, I think Twisted’s post might have unnecessarily alarmed some PARENTS. I think Modadunn was also trying to assure the other PARENTS out there that the situation could have been handled differently - and some PARENTS would have advised our daughters in a different manner. (Notice the emphasis on the word “PARENT!?!?!?”)</p>
<p>lasMa looks like things are perking up with lots of support lots of relief! Mododun-
No real experience with sports My D was good in softball but not recruited or anything sad to see her stop as she loved it she may do club, but she is turning her interests to her major and getting involved in that. It seems that some kids do their sports in HS and then find they dont want to do it anymore… It was a brave decision on your sons part to see that it wasnt a good vibe for him. I’m sure he is going to suceed in college.
H1N1 that is my concern with my D having asthma she says she would rather get it now before it mutates, hopefully havent heard of it doing that. The illness componet is the hard letting go for me as I like to see them for myself and take care of them (mom and nurse in me) and I am also an ICU nurse and always have to hold back from worse case scenario. Good to see the plans and I wasnt to crazy to include masks in her things. This will be my hurdle. glad to read of the plans they seem like good ones.
I will ask my daughter about the bathroom thing I think it would have been better to be more discreet as the adjustment to the new dorm has not been easy, but Iwould have been alarmed to have guys in my Bathroom too</p>