During college orientation, Elizabeth tested positive for Covid and missed her entire first week of classes. Then she texted us photos of two consecutive negative tests, and said she and her roommate had stopped wearing masks in their room, and we felt considerable relief. The next text we got was that EVERYTHING WAS FINE but she was in the ER. She had gone out for ice cream with friends, and had accidentally eaten a flavor that contained tree nuts, which she is allergic to. She took benadryl, which is the first step for her: it’s a relatively mild allergy, so small exposures caught early can often be treated with just benadryl. But she threw up the benadryl, which is one of the list of signals the allergist gave us that would indicate the benadryl was not sufficient in this case. So she called the campus emergency number, and they talked her through self-administering her Epipen which she had never done before, and they called her an ambulance, and she went to the ER.

That could have been broken into two to three paragraphs, but I packed it into one because THAT WAS HOW IT FELT.

We were texting back and forth with her while she waited out her time in the ER: they give her a bunch of medications to counteract the allergic reaction, but then she has to stay there for a certain number of hours so they can make sure those medications were sufficient to fully stop the reaction. This is when she mentioned casually that her release time was 10:30 p.m. (and we know from experiencing Hospital Time on numerous occasions that this could very well mean 11:00 or 11:30), and that she would need to find her own way back to campus BUT DON’T WORRY because the very nice nurse said he would help her figure out Uber.

Well. Well. Lots of good Life Experience happening these first couple of weeks.

She said while she was in her dorm waiting for the ambulance, her R.A. came by to check to see how she was recovering from Covid. She was like “Oh, yes, good news: two negative tests. But also, uh…”

She did manage to set up Uber and arrange a ride back to her dorm. We stayed up until she texted that she was safely back, which was right around 11:30 p.m. Paul then went immediately to sleep, and I lay awake feeling the kind of freezing cold where you know you have to get out of bed to get something warm but you’re too cold to do that. Eventually I had to pee (#evergreen), so I used that opportunity to put on a hoodie and get an extra blanket, and then I could sleep. I’d turned off Do Not Disturb on my phone in case there were further texts, but I worried I’d sleep through them; I worried about her going right to sleep in her room and maybe sleeping through signs that the reaction was back.

First thing in the morning, she texted to say she was fine and had lived through the night. Our insurance card has an instruction on it, saying that if you use emergency care you should call your PCP within 48 hours, so I had her do that. The PCP’s office bungled the whole thing as usual, insisting Elizabeth needed a virtual appointment with the PCP even though Elizabeth explained she was away at school and also didn’t need an appointment, and then calling back to scold her for trying to get away with making a virtual appointment when she was not in the state. So we will see how this shakes out, insurance-wise. My understanding is that ER visits are covered even if they are outside the coverage area, but we’ve never had to test it before, so I don’t know how many hoops there will be.

Elizabeth texted this morning that she has a fever and a cough and a sore throat. It’s interesting how differently this information hits post-Covid than it would have pre-Covid, when I would have thought “Yep, mix all those kids together and everyone’s going to get sick for awhile! Just like preschool!” She has put on one of the masks she brought with her, and is on a bus to a local store to buy Covid tests; she first checked at the student health center, but they no longer stock tests.

I am not going to panic or freak out! I am going to remain calm. She feels well enough to get on a bus, so it is unlikely she will be hospitalized in the next few hours. And the good news about how almost no one cares about Covid anymore is that the college will not require any action or isolation on her part! How nice! Her use of a mask will in fact be seen as paranoid overkill! How nice!

My agitation is finding its usual channels, so I have already sent several packages: one box of Covid tests from our large stash, which won’t get to her for a few days but will let her continue testing / test later in the semester if this happens again / give her some extras to give to Edward. Another package shipped directly from Amazon, with acetaminophen, goldfish crackers, a pulse oximeter, Kraft Easy Mac, Pepperidge Farm Milanos.

I can’t believe I didn’t send them with tests or pulse oximeters. I felt like I am always too Over the Top about packing, and that I was making good progress on counteracting those impulses—but now that she is FAR AWAY AND SYMPTOMATIC, I feel instead like I let WRONG FEELINGS correct my RIGHT FEELINGS. This is what can happen to those of us with anxiety: everyone says trust your gut, but then we get continual feedback that we-specifically are wrong to trust our specific guts, and so we overcorrect in an attempt to find Normal. AND THEN LOOK WHAT HAPPENS!! My gut is folding its arms and going MM-HM at me and is WELL JUSTIFIED in doing so!! I deserve EVERY POINTED LOOK!

I am not particularly worried about this particular case of Covid: she is vaccinated, which as far as I know is still pretty effective at reducing serious illness and hospitalization. (And if necessary, I could get in the car and be there in seven hours; in fourteen hours I could have her back home and at our local ER. This is the math I do to talk myself down.) I AM worried about long Covid and the long-term effects of Covid, which seem like they can happen to anyone, and which we still don’t know a whole lot about BUT DON’T SEEM GOOD AT ALL.

And of course it might not even BE Covid: put a bunch of people together and we still do get sick with all the other usual viruses.

Update: Test was positive. I have a call in to her doctor to see if they’ll send a prescription for Paxlovid to the pharmacy near her college. I don’t know if that will be covered by our insurance but I am feeling “Let’s just keep taking steps and see how it turns out” about this. Edward is going to take another test. I took a test, since I was in the car with Elizabeth for drop-off; mine was negative.

Further update: Edward’s second test was negative.

I just realized I have ALREADY SENT my LAST college care package to Rob, because I sent an Easter package to him a couple weeks ago, and he graduates college in a few weeks.

Does that seem soon? I mentioned something about his graduation recently, and someone asked if he’d done an accelerated program; but actually he did a 5-year program with co-ops and a double major, so it ought to feel rather LONGER than usual. I think (1) other people’s kids always grow up faster, and (2) I have so many children, it’s hard to keep track, and (3) the pandemic warped everything.

Speaking of which, Rob just emailed us to let us know he tested positive for Covid. He said he was sick for about three days, and that he wouldn’t have tested except a professor asked him to do so and brought him a test. I bless that professor long-distance, because I think it’s good to know When, for all of our Long Covid tracking, which apparently we will be doing for quite some time, as an estimated 5-10% of us (and that includes people who were vaccinated) cope with it for the rest of our lives. I remember when Edward was diagnosed with Crohn’s, how I lay on the bed and cried about it, in large part because this was not just Temporary, or Until He Was Done with the Treatment, but FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE. It was going to be something he would deal with HIS ENTIRE LIFE; it would ALWAYS be a part of him and there was no escape from it.

Meanwhile, I don’t know about your school systems, but in our school system the cases have gone up EXPONENTIALLY this week. It feels as if everyone has it. Which is not super surprising, since our school system was one of the ones that decided the pandemic was over, because if the pandemic was NOT over they’d have to deal with angry parents, and no one wants that! So they abandoned all of the minimal precautions they’d taken in the first place.

A week ago, we found out that two of Elizabeth’s close friends, friends she sits next to in her classes, were both positive for Covid. (Elizabeth wears a mask, but the friends do not.) The school did not tell us, even though we know the school knows. The school was instead pressuring both of those friends to come back five days after the positive tests, telling them they “only had so many sick days,” and that THE STATE WOULD NEED TO GET INVOLVED if they didn’t return to school. This is while both friends were still actively symptomatic. Also: Edward has missed MANY WEEKS of school this year for Crohn’s-related things, as well as for a lengthy stint with pneumonia, and we have never been threatened with The State Getting Involved. One of Elizabeth’s friends came back to school on Thursday, because she thought she had to, and then missed Friday because she was still so sick. But at least the school got ONE EXTRA DAY of her breathing on her classmates!

Anyway, the school never told us that Elizabeth was the close contact of these two known cases, even though the school has a policy of notifying close contacts. They also did not tell us that another of Elizabeth’s classmates-who-sits-next-to-her-in-class-and-works-closely-with-her-on-projects had tested positive; we only know it, again, because the classmate told Elizabeth. Like, in case you are thinking, “Well, my school system seems fine!” You could ask yourself if your child’s classmates (or their parents) would tell you, if the school for some utterly baffling, and perhaps self-protecting/justifying reason, did not tell you.

Also, one of Elizabeth’s teachers was out with a positive Covid test, and then was back, telling the class that she was still testing positive but that the school said she had to come back after five days. The school did not tell us. Perhaps there was no need to tell us! But again: in case you are thinking your own school seems fine: this is another example of something I would not know unless the teacher told my child and my child told me.

Our school system DID tell us that Edward, who is immunosuppressed, was the close contact of someone who tested positive on Monday. They told us this on Thursday. Edward thinks he knows who it is, because someone who sits next to him in one class has been out since Monday; so have two other kids in that class; so has the teacher. (Edward wears a mask; the classmates and teacher do not.)

I feel as if everything is collapsing, and also that this was entirely predictable and entirely preventable. The United States, as a country, did it this way on purpose. This wasn’t something that could be dealt with on an individual basis; it was in fact one of the BEST POSSIBLE MOTIVATIONS/REASONS for having a government to guide/assist. I am so looking forward to the spin they put on this in the history books.

Just under two weeks ago, we talked with Rob and William about their fall college decisions, and both of them said they did not want to go in-person to campus. Since then, their colleges have continued to email updates about plans for the upcoming school year. William’s college is offering a full online option, with an easy and no-penalty cancellation for housing reservations. Students who do go in-person will have half-capacity college housing, and low-capacity dining-hall options. So William’s college will get their full tuition from William (though not the room and board), and he will attend classes from our house—which will help reduce the number of students on campus, for the benefit of students who must attend in person, which is how the college seems to see it.

Rob’s college is going in-person, with some classes offered online only to reduce class size, but no all-online option: that is, the students are expected to attend some classes/days online to reduce the number of students physically in the classrooms on each particular day, but the classes are not designed to be taken fully online from off-campus, nor is that an option at this point. There has been no change in housing or dining hall capacity mentioned so far (and Rob’s four-person housing is still listed as including himself and three roommates), and they are still listing the usual pre-pandemic multi-hundred-dollar cancellation fee for housing (which was reserved back before the pandemic), as if these were Normal Times and not Pandemic Times.

Rob’s college is also asking all students to quarantine in the same state as the college for two weeks before classes begin, without saying how that can possibly work. Are we supposed to…stay in a hotel? For two weeks? Carrying in all our groceries with us and never leaving our room? How many households have a spare adult who can suspend their usual life for two weeks to accompany the student? Furthermore, it’s apparently honor system! So some families will attempt to quarantine as instructed, at huge personal expense and baffling inconvenience, and others will roll their eyes and just show up unquarantined!

How glad am I that we already decided he would not go? VERY GLAD. HANG the cancellation fee! HANG it! They can HAVE it! They can keep their several hundred dollars, and WE will keep the entirety of the tuition they could otherwise have had for this semester—and possibly we will also keep the remaining tuition for the rest of his college education, if this experience has a long-term effect on our feelings about the college! How about THAT! Paul and I were talking this evening about how, until now, we would have ENCOURAGED any of our younger three to attend this college, been GLAD if they’d chosen it, REJOICED if they’d chosen it—and now we feel VERY DIFFERENTLY. It reminds me of things I’ve seen online about people planning to ask in all future job interviews “How did your company handle the pandemic?”—to see if the company valued/prioritized its employees’ safety, or no. I hope Rob’s college will feel they got a good value out of that cancellation fee!

(I do plan to attempt to have the fee waived. But none of their communications indicate that having it waived is an option—or even that they are aware that some students may WANT that option. They are proceeding as if they believe all students will be reporting back to campus next month, well-rested and quarantined and eager to get back to learning together. And if we CAN’T get the fee waived, then they are WELCOME TO IT. I consider it a SMALL COST to keep my child off of their fully-populated, no-online-option, honor-system-quarantined campus.)

We (meaning mostly Rob, but Paul and I are available to assist/nag/prompt if needed) are now looking into several options for Rob. Possibly he will take a semester off, and wait for his college to change their plans, as we suspect they will be doing even before the end of the fall semester. Possibly he will be able to get some sort of online internship. Possibly he can continue his online summer job. Possibly he will see if he can get a rapid transfer to William’s college (he was accepted there back when he was applying to colleges, and it was one of his top finalists, and we feel EVEN BETTER about that college now than we did then).