My D has had quite a month. She had her wisdom teeth out 3 weeks ago and didn’t have the easiest time. 8 days after that, we left on vacation. Vacation was great and slowly she was able to return to eating regular foods. On the last day of vacation, she developed a cough. We treated it with OTC meds and assumed it was nothing. On Wednesday, we flew home from CA to CT. By the time we landed at the airport, it was 7pm and she was still feeling lousy. I took her to the walk in clinic thinking we would get an Rx for cough medicine with codeine to help her sleep. The took her temp and it was 103!!! They diagnosed her with pneumonia and sent us out with 5 prescriptions including Z-pack, steroids, an inhaler, cough meds and Motrin. Yesterday, we took her for a chest x-ray and then back to the dr for a nebulizer treatment.
The Doctor says she should be 80% by next Thursday. I called her regular doctor who can’t talk to me because she just turned 18… duh… so they are calling her to discuss. I am hoping her regular MD will see her on Tuesday or Wednesday and give her the “all clear” to move in.
I guess I’m just sharing. It’s a busy time and I feel terrible that she is sick. Better now, than a week from now - I guess.
That is stressful, sorry she is dealing with all that. They should be able to send her off with an albuterol inhaler to have if she needs it or even an inhaler with steroids although she is likely to have finished that part of the treatment. My D has a history of pneumonia and it seems every cold turns into bronchitis or pneumonia, although it has gotten a bit better as she has gotten older. So she went off to college with a nebulizer and the little albuterol vile things just incase she has to deal with it at school. Pneumonia can still be very scary so I would ask if she can take anything with her so she isn’t dealing with school health clinic at 3am when struggling to breathe. She would know if she needed to do the albuterol treatment. Best to you.
Oh goodness, sorry about this added stress. Hopefully she will be OK for move-in. And yes, certainly better it is now than during her first week of college. Your D can give permission for her doctors to speak with you so on your return visit you may want to arrange for that (at least as far as this particular illness goes). On the follow-up visit you or your D should also ask if you will need to make any arrangements with health services at her college for follow-up and try to get that handled in advance if possible. Good luck.
Definitely get your D to sign the paperwork giving you access to her medical care info. Be thankful this developed and treatment was begun before move in. She may still be a bit “under the weather” but will do fine.
I am reminded of our son- we parents are physicians. Son’s junior or senior year he developed pneumonia in a winter month- a cold became worse… He finally called and got an appointment at the student health services (days, not hours, after his request) and walked several blocks to it from his apartment. He reported to us he vomited into a dead plant pot along the way- a potentially smelly surprise for people when it warmed up in the spring (vomiting up stuff with his infection not unusual). Gross. He got the needed Rx’s and did fine.
Physician here also. In my work, I run into lots of freshmen who have gotten either the flu or pneumonia or mono.
Also, taken on too much academically, or had roommate problems, or who broke up with BF or GF. Many have had all 4. At least you have this out of the way! Feel better!
On the day before leaving to campus for freshman orientation our son comes up and says “I’m having trouble breathing”. He had not had asthma symptoms for over 6 years, but we scrambled to get him in to see a Dr. Sure enough, low oxygen levels. She prescribed steroids, inhaler, and nebulizer. He completed the steroids, and hasn’t had any issues since. I’m thinking stress plays a role in all this.
My kid was in the hospital a week before leaving for the other coast, and was fine. Young people rebound pretty well from pneumonia. Was it bacterial or viral? The high fever and Zithromax would seem to indicate bacterial.
The only thing is that residual inflammation can set up a situation where a person is more vulnerable to colds and flus, and has more trouble with them.
We always used albuterol and an inhaled steroid (Flovent for instance) at first. Once the inhaled steroid kicked in we dropped the albuterol. Inhaled steroids are much more benign than albuterol. Doing inhaled steroids for some weeks or even a couple of months would calm any residual inflammation and maybe make the rest of the fall and winter go well.
At each of my kids 18 year old check up they came in with a letter saying that the doc could discuss any medical issue with me and offered to filll out doctors own forms to that effect. More than once I had to tell one of the docs to check their paperwork when they gave me the " we can’t talk to you because child is 18 "speech.
Interestingly my husbands doc doesn’t think twice before talking to me!
In any event be glad that this didn’t happen first week at school. D will prob be feeling pretty good by time school starts!
If there is a health service on campus, I would have your student call with you sitting nearby to alert them, have them tell you about permission to talk to you that is signed by you and student and ask if there is anything they need to know. Pneumonia seems to feel less terrible after a few days, but lots of walking at get slower and breathing more difficult. Coughing may linger so hard candies a cough drops and even some other !liquid for throat and cough maybe needed. Lots of tissue, a of to and paper towels maybe needed.
Hangdog, the university has a RN on duty 24/7 at the Health and Wellness Center. If she finds she needs help, it’s there for her.
That may be small comfort, but it is something.
Thanks everyone! She will be done with her antibiotics and steroids but I do plan to send her with her inhaler and her cough medicine with codeine. I think I will feel better once SHE starts feeling better. But I’ve already warned her she won’t be 100% and will need to take it easy on move in weekend. I neglected to mention it is bilateral (aka "double pneumonia). She is an otherwise healthy kid so I’m hoping she rallies quickly.
Her school does have an RN on duty (thanks @CTmom2018) so we plan to send over the MD’s notes and Xray evaluation. I will have her sign the necessary HIPAA paperwork and urge her to check in at the Health Center if she is not feeling well.
@preppedparent you are so right that stress probably plays a big role in this! And she is leaving the BF to head to school, so let’s hope we don’t have another mess at the same time. Thankfully, she seems to have her head on straight with that so far!
@compmom, I understood it to be bacterial - hence the antibiotics, but I’m not sure how they know that, other than the fever.
She is on the 1st floor in the dorm closest to everything so that cuts down on some of her walking/climbing too, I guess.
Poor girlie! Not a fun way to start the next chapter of her young life! Well, maybe it will help her immune system fight whatever else she’ll be exposed to on campus. So many kids get sick that first year - people coming from all over the world, tired, stressed and in close quarters. A great lesson in adulting: advocating for your own health (now that she’s 18). Hang in there, mom!
Other than being on steroids, which are a real pain, recovering from pneumonia is not necessarily that bad. I’ve had it several times, diagnosed only after I realize I’ve been feeling run down for a while. It’s not nearly as bad as mono. I imagine she will be feeling a lot better quickly, with antibiotics and steroids. Do encourage her to use the inhaler regularly, as that can really help clear up the “muck” in her lungs. Tough break to have to deal with that on top of everything, but it may serve the purpose of forcing her to take it easy, and give her a ready excuse to disengage from the freshman antics that can run amuck the first few weeks of college. Hugs!
I took my daughter out to dinner the night before she went on study abroad. At 7:01, when the dentist (across the street from the restaurant) just closed, she says “That tooth I had filled last week really hurts.” The next morning we are sitting in the parking lot at 7 (didn’t open until 7:30). Luckily, it was just a high spot on the filling so we could go home and PACK before she had to be at the airport at 2 pm.
I feel for you. My very first semester as a Freshman in college, I developed strep throat and mono. Talk about bad luck! I ended up staying in the health services facility for about a week because I was so sick. My parents asked me if I wanted to come home, but I loved it there so much I told them no. I had to drop a class, and my GPA took quite a hit. I spent the rest of my college years trying to bring it back up, which I finally did.
Hope your daughter is feeling better! Pneumonia can come on strong and fast. If she’s not feeling better within 2 days of starting the antibiotics, go back to the doctor.
I say this because a couple of years ago, I contracted pneumonia. Went to urgent care, had a chest xray, was prescribed antibiotics, which I started taking that day. At the time, the pneumonia was in the lower lobe of 1 of my lungs and it had only just begun (but I felt like doo doo all the same).
That was on a Saturday around noon. By Monday afternoon, the cough was worse, not better. The fever never went away. It went up. And I became so out of breath that my heart was racing while I was just sitting down and doing nothing. That evening, my husband took me to the ER.
I was admitted to the hospital for 5 days and pumped with 3 different antiobiotics through an IV. Upon being discharged, I required supplemental oxygen at home for 2 weeks after that. I was out of commission for 3 weeks in total.
When I was admitted into the hospital from the ER and they did another chest xray, they said that my lungs were almost completely full of fluid and my oxygen levels were only a couple of points away from requiring them to put a tube down my throat to help me breath.
The biggest lesson your daughter should learn from this is the importance of listening to your gut. If you suspect something is wrong, get it checked out. Sometimes, waiting to go see the doctor is a really good idea. But if she suddenly starts to get worse, she needs to be seen by a medical professional quickly and she shouldn’t wait.
Once she is all healed from the pneumonia, I would highly recommend that she consider getting one of those 5-year vaccinations for bacterial pneumonia. That’s what my PCP recommended once I was well enough to go off of supplemental oxygen.