Article : The Boy Was Feverish, With a Swollen Testicle. What Could He Possibly Have?

Hmm, they did take him to emergency doctors several times and he took the suggested medications. If a doctor assures a parent their child has 'just a virus' it's hard to know what else you can do.

 

OK, I take your point about getting him home. I probably would have done that. But it's not clear from the article how much he was telling his parents about his symptoms except when they completely stopped him in his tracks. And it fluctuated, so they probably thought it was getting better whenever the symptoms abated. If all the doctors were assuring them it was just a virus, they had no reason to do more than let him rest in bed.

 

I agree with all that, @James Morris-Lent. But when all a 16 year old tells his parents is he has a rash, and the infirmary doctor has told him it's a virus and given him treatment, and he's desperate to stay at the camp he'd looked forward to for so long, I'm guessing he made light of the symptoms so he could stay.

It was at the stage of then setting off for Europe despite the lad being in a lot of pain and clearly unwell, I would agree - forgo Europe and take him home.

But again - maybe he hid his symptoms until they were already in Europe, so going home seemed pointless when he could rest and see doctors if needed just as well in Europe as he could at home. You're not going to drag a sick kid out of bed to fly him half way across the world, when the doctor assures you it's just a virus that will go away with a few days rest. And no airline is going to allow a kid too sick to get out of bed with something possibly contagious to get on the plane anyway.

I promise to say no more on the subject!