Do you remember my absolute meltdown when I left my oldest at sleepaway camp? 

I spent a week obsessively refreshing the camp’s Facebook page. No phones and no calling home were two major rules of the camp. Facebook was my only link to my child. 

Seeing my daughter’s countenance populate the camp’s Facebook feed brought joy. Relief. Scrutiny. 

Did I detect a scrunch to her eyebrow? The kind she gets when she’s upset? Is that sunburn? Pinkeye? Typhoid? 

Worse, this was a scuba diving camp. I mean, why not just put my daughter on train tracks, a train bearing down upon her? A car with the brakes cut? Any Final Destination movie? 

As each day’s Facebook post brought confirmation my daughter was surviving the perils of scuba, I took screenshots of her, texting them to my husband. 

By day two of camp, my husband texted a plea. He was working. He, too, has Facebook. And he was 100 percent confident our daughter was in no immediate peril. 

The gall, right? Our daughter is safe thanks to my perpetual worry, and he wants no evidence of my worry? He is Tom Cruise to my Jack Nicholson — sleeping under the blanket of my protection. But not questioning it — he’s jettisoning that blanket altogether. 

On the last day of camp, the camp staff called me. 

This is it, I thought. Scuba accident. Hospital. Maybe worse. 

It was just a call to review the camp dismissal procedure. 

Now that that kid is away at college, one might think I’m much better at the sleepaway camp thing. 

One would be wrong. 

My son went to a sleepaway camp last summer. I offered to walk with him to the TSA line. 

“Mom, no,” he said. “Oh my God. No.” 

Which was so unclear. I opted to stay in the car. But I wonder, even now, if I made the right decision. What 17-year-old boy doesn’t want his mommy holding his hand in the airport? 

I offered to meet up with him at the end of camp, as suggested by the camp staff. The camp is in a popular tourist destination. We could sightsee! Explore! 

“No,” he said. “No.” 

Poor communication skills, that one, am I right? 

This summer, in a few short weeks, my daughter is going to Cuba with her college. Fifteen days. No Wi-Fi. No cell service. 

Scuba diving. 

Camping on a beach. 

How many things can kill you in this situation? 

“Well, rabies, chikungunya, typhoid, and hepatitis A. But she’s already vaccinated against hep A,” the doctor at the travel vaccine clinic said. 

Um, what — what is chikungunya? 

And actual typhoid? Rabies?  

Do yourself a favor. Don’t ever Google “chikungunya.” 

I’d also say don’t read Cujo, but I’m about a decade too late for that. 

Chikungunya is a virus from a mosquito. 

As if mosquitoes aren’t already the worst. 

It causes a high fever and joint pain. 

When you’re camping. 

Without cell service. 

In Cuba. 

That sounds — great. Just great. 

I was joking about typhoid before, because I just watched Claire on Outlander save a ship full of 18th-century sailors with typhoid. My Google AI tells me it’s life-threatening. 

Yeah, Google AI. I know that. Most of the sailors were already dead by the time Claire came aboard. 

I mean, you’re AI. You should know that. 

The worst, by far, is rabies. 

The doctor explained the rabies vaccine did not negate the need for treatment if my daughter is bitten by a rabid — or questionably rabid — animal. 

Cool.  

Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. 

The two-shot series — known as “pre-exposure” — buys my daughter three days to get back to the United States for a second two-shot series. 

It also eliminates the need for immunoglobulin, a staple of “post-exposure” rabies treatment. 

“It’s difficult to find,” the doctor explained. Which sounds like exactly what you’d want when a fatal, neurotoxic virus is coursing through your body. 

In a tent. 

In Cuba. 

With no cell service. 

In the event of rabies exposure, my daughter would, in all likelihood, be brought to Miami by helicopter. 

And you thought the scuba camp was tough. Pah. 

“This is an amazing experience for her,” said my husband, and upon whose shoulders I squarely lay the blame for my daughter’s Cuba trip. This is a man who paid to wake up in a tent in Idaho, a daddy longlegs climbing across his face. 

Had I known this desire to camp, creepy crawly amoebas invading your bloodstream like they’re Martin Short in Innerspace, I maybe would have gone in a different direction, paternity-wise. But we’re here now. 

“Can you do something?” I asked him. 

“Oh, sure,” he said. “I’m setting her up with my InReach.” 

Which is a satellite communication device you never need if you’re, say, in a museum. Bookstore. New York City. 

And was not at all what I had in mind.  

As I write this, my daughter is texting me about having just received her first pre-exposure rabies shot. 

I think I need a shot.

Of a wholly different sort.