“I want to give a warning to parents whose kids have had COVID without any issues. My daughter, Erin, and I had COVID in July. My daughter was literally sick for 10 minutes, but this infection had ZERO impact on her while she was positive. In mid-August, Erin went back to Arizona State for her 2nd year, and about 6 weeks in, she started sleeping way more than she usually does and waking up at 2-3 p.m. With being on ZOOM and a lack of social outings, we chalked it up to boredom. I was worried she was depressed.
Fast forward to 10 days ago, Erin called me late from a party where she was violently throwing up. Of course, my first thought was she had been drinking, but she swore up and down she didn’t have anything to drink. I thought, ‘Yeah sure…’ She threw up for 24 hours or so, then she finally went to Health Services who diagnosed her with gastroenteritis. Then, 2 days later, she was complaining of a mild sore throat, which was no biggie. I told her to take some Tylenol.
Two nights later, at around 2 a.m., she called me hysterical because her throat hurt so bad. I told her to take more Tylenol. She could barely get any down until Health services opened at 8 a.m. I stayed on the phone with her and her pain got worse, so my Mom Instinct kicked in and I was on the 6 a.m. flight from St. Louis. I wasn’t a helicopter parent, I was an AIRLINE PARENT!
While I was flying in, Erin’s pain got so bad her roommate took her to Urgent Care where they diagnosed her with Mono. I landed at 8 a.m. their time and then took her to Health Services. They could not get an IV in her because she was so dehydrated, but they gave her an anti inflammatory for her throat (they will NOT give kids pain meds). Erin felt better afterward! I made her my world-famous Chicken soup!
The next morning, she woke up in even more pain and begged me to take her to the ER. I will spare you the pictures of her throat and the progression of how bad it got, but even the ENT Doctor was shocked. The ER Doctor told her she needed to ride it out. They gave her some pain meds while we were in the ER, but they would not prescribe her anything to go home with.
They did a blood workup on her and that is when everything changed to an emergency situation. Her white blood cell count was 22,900— these are levels of people who have acute leukemia. The Doctor didn’t want to do a CT, but thank goodness I was there and insisted. They found a very rare abscess on her adenoid. So, suddenly we were talking to a surgeon. She had sepsis and they needed to address the abscess.
Just to keep things interesting, my 21-year-old son called and said he tested positive for COVID at his college in Indiana. I literally dropped my phone on the floor in the emergency room.
Anyway, very long story short, she was admitted to the hospital and given 3 days around the clock, IV bag after bag of Vancomycin, and Clingdymycin to fight the sepsis. Erin was diagnosed with Sepsis, Mono, Strep, Adenoid Abscess, and Gastroenteritis.
I asked the Infectious Disease Doctor if her immune system could have been compromised due to COVID and his honest answer was, ‘I don’t know.’ He said it is VERY unusual for a healthy kid to get so sick and get a rare abscess with no pre-existing conditions. He said, ‘Frankly, we just don’t know enough about the long-term effects of asymptomatic people.’
Make sure you keep a close watch on your kids and use your parenting 6th sense because we are in a new normal that is not so normal. I am very blessed because they told me another 24 hours without medicine could have been tragic. I brought Erin home to St. Louis to recover and she is still fighting the Mono, but she is WAY better than last week! Parenting is not for the faint of heart.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Kim Bouldin-Jones. Submit your own story here and be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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