Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO) is when a patient has a fever (that’s >99.7F oral, or >101 rectal) on three occasions or three days in the hospital, and nobody can figure out why the heck he or she has it. It’s usually due to an infection, cancer, or autoimmune disease, but I’ve recently recalled from my childhood one major cause that no one at Smartypants Stanford thought of:

Child faking a fever.

I was no expert at this, and having a nurse and physician as parents didn’t help, but on at least one occasion I took the thermometer my mom gave me and stuck it up next to the lightbulb of the lamp next to my bed. Voila, temperature of 106. Unfortunately, lacking the knowledge that I’d probably be dead, or at least look close to it, at 106 degrees, I was forced to go to school.

Also fun to say in the “Eff You” category: 5-FU , a chemotherapy / cancer drug.

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