Wonder How This Will Be Handled?!

[ctmartin]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4275202/Central-Michigan-University-student-hazed-peanuts.html

[GoingNuts]

That is horrendous.  OMG.

[gvmom]

I saw this earlier today, and just showed it to my DS1.  Of course, this is sort of one of those things I've worried about in the midst of all of the college doings. 

I think that he is lucky to just have had the reaction he did given the circumstances. 

Hopefully something is done though, and that there is some follow-up story with more details. 

[gvmom]

Just as a sort of note... even if for my own memory....

... looking at various forms of the same article...

.... it says he was "sent" by a professor to the clinic... does that mean he wasn't going to go himself?  Or, was an ambulance called by the professor to get him there? 

This would be one of those things to think about for how a reaction is handled..... like would your kid actually be able to handle an emergency on their own if necessary?  Administering an epi-pen to themselves and calling 911.  Or, would they try to get through a reaction, waiting .... and then going to a clinic only after being told to go? 

We go through so many hypotheticals... now how do you run through "if you wake up with peanut butter smeared on your face"....

.... I wouldn't imagine either that I would be finding out about it at a later date, and wondering who took the photos but didn't notify parents about medical treatment.... especially if this is a college situation.

Also, important note to check out if a child has interest in fraternities/sororities to see if they are actually legit and have anti-hazing policies.  I have long been disgusted by hazing..... and thus far none of my kids seem interested in joining anything like a fraternity.... but what is the social pressure like at colleges to actually belong to one?  It seems pretty risky for anyone to join a fraternity that has been kicked out because of hazing incidents. 

At least it sounds like this young man is now at a different school and hopefully will be in a better & safer situation.

A few extra things to add to my list to think about and talk to DS1 especially about.... in addition to "try to be the designated sober person if you are in a situation where you feel pressured to drink so that you aren't impaired .... that is when you can end up with potentially fatal lapse in ability to deal with a reaction"......

[Janelle205]

.... it says he was "sent" by a professor to the clinic... does that mean he wasn't going to go himself?  Or, was an ambulance called by the professor to get him there? 

This would be one of those things to think about for how a reaction is handled..... like would your kid actually be able to handle an emergency on their own if necessary?  Administering an epi-pen to themselves and calling 911.  Or, would they try to get through a reaction, waiting .... and then going to a clinic only after being told to go? 

Part of this could be the 'brain fog' that sometimes come with a reaction.  When I was living at camp as an outdoor ed director, I had an unexpected reaction - how I eventually found out I was allergic to saffron.  It was during the off-season, so I was at home alone.  It completely made sense in my head to get into my car with my portable neb and drive to the urgent care in the nearest town.  It wasn't an 'I don't know what to do' situation, it wasn't a 'I'm not sure it's that bad' or 'let's see if this gets any worse situation', I was kind of out of it, and my brain legitimately was telling me that was the logical, 'right' thing to do.

To give perspective - this was a really horrible idea.  It required me to drive myself on winding country roads for 15 minutes into a small town that had no hospital, only urgent care.  Now, their urgent care was a little more equipped than most, since the nearest hospital was an additional 45 minutes from there, but still, this was a spectacularly poor choice.  I drove, portable neb going the whole way, and parked.  As soon as I got out of the car, I was hit by the impending doom/I'm going to die very, very soon feeling.  I went in, skipped the sign in and wandered over to the check in, where I told them I thought that I was having an allergic reaction.  By that point, I was apparently looking pretty bad - slightly swollen, wheezing audibly, lips and fingernails turning blue, etc.  I was in their 'crash room' in less than two minutes, hooked up to monitors, epinephrine given, starting IVs for other stuff.  (I have to say, for an urgent care, they MOVED when stuff went bad.) 

Everything turned out fine, but in that case, it wasn't really even that I was making a poor choice - it was that I wasn't able to choose at all.  My brain didn't even consider it to be a choice really - it was just like, "Hey, the logical thing to do here is to take yourself to urgent care.  Do that."  Like autopilot of bad ideas, if you will.

Now I don't have an answer for how you plan around not being mentally able to execute your emergency plan, since there aren't really a whole lot of ways to plan for that.  But I think one thing to consider when you are teaching kids/young adults to make responsible choices with reactions, is that they need to keep in mind that it is possible that when it happens, you won't be able to make those choices.  Which means that it is super important to make sure that you are not surrounding yourself with people that you can't trust.  It probably wasn't the first time that the other people in the fraternity did something sketchy, and it isn't necessarily fair that severely allergic people need to be extra cautious about it, but it's just a reality in keeping yourself safe.

[gvmom]

I get that he could have had "brain fog" or not been thinking clearly.... but I actually really want to know more particulars.  These types of stories start out with just enough information to make you wonder, but the follow up isn't always there. 

Part of what I've done since discovering DS1 had food allergies all those many years ago is to go through reaction stories to see if there is information to learn from. 

The "sent" by the professor part could mean so many things... without knowing what really happened in that one segment of the story, it is hard to sort of see if there was something to take note of. 

Like, did he wake up and tried to do something, or did someone discover him, did he wake up and try to take care of his reaction but was in a fog and got to class looking like the photos and then the professor told him to go to the clinic..... there are a ton of scenarios that are possible that could happen in the time between passed out with peanut butter on face and then being sent by the professor.  It suggests that he was awake... to then get sent.... but without details there is just guessing.

BTW, I'm glad everything turned out with you coming out alive from your reaction while you were living at the camp.  So many things could have really done wrong with that.... and I'm actually likely going to re-read your experience a few times and take notes!

[rebekahc]

I would suspect that the professor was a faculty sponsor of the fraternity and one of the members called him to help when things went bad.

[Macabre]

And typically faculty can't administer Epi. My son's health center was open to discussing an accommodation. I gave the passed out scenario, because he has experienced that. But I have not delved here.