She went to urgent care and they said it wasn’t the flu or strep. I hadn’t read the responses to have her ask about a mono test before she went. If she’s still this sick in a few days I will suggest it. She has been proactive in trying to get better, but there doesn’t seem much besides rest and fluids right now.
I really hope it’s not mono, though. I had an especially severe case in my 20s and was hospitalized. I know some of D’s friends have had it in past and they have taken weeks to get over it.
It’s a blood test for mono. I’d advise her to contact all profs to let them know proactively. They are more understanding when given as much notice as posdible.
While there’s not much they can do for mono, it is important to know if you have it, because you need to be diligent about after care for several weeks to avoid spleen complications. That’s the thing that riled me about D1’s student health center experience when she was a freshman - she had a known exposure to mono, but the student health center wouldn’t test her - said a virus was going around - um, YEA, mono is a virus! So she wasn’t careful as she recuperated, and had an awful relapse about four weeks later 48 hours after finishing finals that wiped her out for the whole summer.
If the fever stays have them do both the mono blood test and a walking pneumonia test at the same time. Both need blood tests. My kid just got over a case here and he had a bouncing fever that went from 101 to 103.5, up and down for days. It did not go away with regular antibiotics. They would need specific meds for that. Sometimes kids don’t know that they need to ask doctors for specific things. I asked for the pneumonia test after an internet friend suggested it. The doc was surprised when it came back positive! This was with a clear chest x-ray. With the antibiotic it went away in 5 days.
Wow, scary, I’m so sorry. 103 is high, I don’t know if D has had a fever that high since she was a toddler. Hopefully she has friends at the school who are caring for her. Its been two full days already. I think I’d be preparing for a road trip tomorrow night if it hadn’t broken by mid-afternoon. I am far from a helicopter parent and probably wouldn’t fly but a four hour drive, yes. Please keep us in the loop.
Is there any chance at all that she might exaggerate the temp or that it is not consistent but rather hit 103 for a short time? I can see my D doing this, she’s a bit of a baby lol, and if she was really feeling poorly she’d probably pull out the stops to get me to drive to her LOL.
A tip that came up on a separate thread a while back is to have a power of attorney/health care directive that will allow providers to release information to you. Even as a parent, your access can be limited and you can have to battle with bureaucracy. When D was in school, we had a consent form with Blue Shield that served the same purpose (never had to use it, fortunately), but I realize in hindsight that we might still have had issues if something had happened while her team was on the road and she was out of the coverage area.
Good point AboutTheSame. I know I had D sign some type of form for the school, I’ll have to dig it out just in case. So many forms when you start out, its easy to forget. I had thought about “why not call the health center yourself” but then thought a lot of parents do not want to hover.
@intparent You wouldn’t want a dependable communication contact for your kid with 103 fever? Sounds to me like the health services center handled the situation very poorly. Have you ever had a 103 fever? I have. Has it ever gone up to 105 for you? It has for me. Extreme fatigue and dehydration could set in depending on her diagnosis. If you are worried about embarrassing your kid, get over it.
Yes, I have had a high fever. And so have my kids. This kid is getting herself to health services and urgent care. Your kids will not thank you for contacting their friends and roommates. Residential Life and Campus Security are options if it seems like she is in imminent danger. Not putting the roommate on speed dial – that is helicopter patenting.
Nope. It’s called caring. And I never said anything about pestering her friends and roommates. All I said was to get a dependable communication contact. And I stand by my advice.
Um. I care about my kids. Which is why I do know how to contact campus security and residential life if needed. And why I also give them autonomy at college – it is good for them.
My daughter had a doozie of a senior year. Her first term, she had H1N1…luckily caught early…and luckily tamiflu helped.
Her second term…one week in…she had her gall bladder removed. Emergency surgery and 3000 miles from home. It was at that moment that she understood why I insisted that all applications to college be either a three hour or less drive from home…or near a close friend or relative. Luckily for us…the close friend and relative were there to help. The relative actually spent six days with DD while she was in the hospital having two surgeries. Even if I had wanted to…I would not have gotten there in time for either operation. Both were emergency level…and scheduled at the last minute…for the first thing in the morning.
If DD had not rebounded from the second surgery, I would have flown out, and stayed with her at the friend’s house.
Luckily this didn’t happen.
Oh…and it made me very much appreciate her college which worked very hard with her to make sure she would be able to graduate with her class that June.
I didn’t read all posts. My son has not had good luck with campus health center. He went because he was in terrible shape, and they told him he has the flu, or something similar, and offered him a note for missing class. Eventually one of his roommates wound up taking him to the hospital in the middle of the night. He had mono, with “classic” symptoms. My guy is 6 or so hours away. I offered to pay to have food delivered when he was sick, but he never took me up on it. I was tempted to drive up when he wound up in the hospital and then went “off the grid” for many hours (like that night and through much of the next day). I informed him that if he called me in crisis again, he REALLY
Needed to let me know how things went. But he was just sleeping, thank goodness.
We aren’t saying call a friend blind or find them on FB. More about saying to ours, make sure your friend has (or knows how to find) my number. Make sure your urgent care or hospital record includes me.
Every parent should educate their college student about HIPAA regulations. Any health care organization - campus health, urgent care, hospital, whatever, is required to provide patients with a HIPAA form that allows them to specify what other adults can have access to their health care information. I made sure my kids know to add us to their HIPAA waivers. I also asked my niece, who attended college near us, to add us in case of emergency. I personally add my husband, my over-18 child, and my best friend (who is a doctor) to all my HIPAA waivers.
Without a HIPAA waiver, a medical professional cannot legally talk to you about an individual’s health, even if that individual is your over-18 age child. With a HIPAA waiver, you can help your child if they have questions/issues with the health care they are receiving.
D has always managed her own health care - whether that’s away at school (several states away) or overseas. But it is comforting to know that I could call and speak with her health care providers if she had a significant health issue.
First dealt with this just over 9 years ago when D1 was a college freshman with a stomach bug in the middle of first semester finals. She had some gastro issues at the time so that made it so much worse . She lived in a suite with five other girls, one of whom was really inconsiderate and played her music that she composed herself ALL NIGHT LONG…I was this close to flying to Boston to accompany her back for Christmas break.
She had a friend there from home that brought her some liquids
I sent her off with basics in case she were to get any sickness that would require OTC meds to get through. And when her sister moved to her university in the same city two years later, I made sure that anything we would have at home would be there for her too…and she did get sick and was lucky enough to have her big sister there to take care of her.
Now my youngest is a freshman and has a lot on hand. She was a little ill a few months ago, which I think was more from fatigue than anything else. Her roommate went to the dorm desk and asked for campus health to come check on her, which impressed me…they co-exist nicely , but I wouldn’t consider them close friends …they seems to really respect each other
I had a great relationship with my roommate and happily took care of her when she was sick, sometimes keeping her mom informed. But her parents (and mine) would’ve NEVER assumed that it was OK to contact each other unless they’d had some sort of pre-existing relationship (which we had with each other’s parents).
If you absolutely must have a contact person, it should be the RA unless the D has voluntarily offered someone as a contact person.
I think it’s weird that so many people are freaked out by the suggestion that a parent have contact information for the roommate. I am probably very high on the hands-off scale, and let my D handle illnesses on her own unless there really is a major problem. Why is it weird to have the roommate’s contact information in case something goes wrong and you can’t reach your kid?
ETA: When I asked for the info, I told my D that I was asking for it only for use in emergencies, and asked her to give my info to the roommate in case she likewise needed to contact me.