COVID-19 Chronicles: Tested

Woke up around 3 AM and I was pretty sure that this time I was really going to die

It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t breathe as that the breathing I was doing was very hot and wrong, my lungs, my chest

Thought about getting up to call an ambulance

Wished I had not Googled “peribronchial thickening” before bed, better not to have a visual of what was going on in there

Got up to use bathroom and try to go back to sleep again, thinking reinforcing thoughts about the azithromycin while also worrying how I was going to get through the next 9 hours before I could take the second dose

Fitful sleep, snapped awake again at 6 am, lay on my stomach to read for an hour or so

Then I managed to fall back asleep, not underworld visit like the last few days but an actual deep, peaceful nap, woke up feeling so much better, okay, trust in this widely used antibiotic

Hubby hadn’t slept well at all for two days, was starting to feel ill, I talked him into taking a Unisom and he conked out until nearly 1 pm, I actually went in to make sure he was still breathing

So birdie and I had the morning together to read quietly, like old times except my lungs feel like they belong to an old man who smokes cigars around a bonfire made of burning tires

Reading, greatest pleasure of my life, I am finally at a point when I can focus and follow a plot again!

Hubby got up, we both laughed, he’s a 6 am guy and always has been

Perfect timing, lovely friend texted just then to invite us to get COVID tests together, fun friend outing

We each had to register separately, they offer maybe 50 time slots per hour, get confirmation #

Shower and get ready, still so tired I need to lie down after, ironic that proving your need for medical treatment is so physically demanding

Get dressed! Bend over and put on shoes! Carry bag! Walk tens of feet! Stand for minutes at a time! Talk to several people! Open pill bottles!

Hubby and I left apartment together for first time in a month, opportunity to run robot vacuum without listening to it, in the old days on a Saturday we would be going to movie theater

Walked down stairs to street level, trying to avoid elevator, conscientious

By the time we got down there, one minute, I was in a flop sweat, nauseated, shaky, sat on planter box

Friend pulled up, we piled in, like old times except all in masks like bank robbers

Chattering and joking about news, trading gossip

Turns out, out of the Virus Brunch cluster, 16 exposed (14 adults 2 kids), 12 people total infected, 5 tested positive, no others got tests, today will make 8 tests

Place your bets, out of the three of us, will we all get the same results? Or not? Who will get which?

Drove over to testing site, in past times I would have considered walking to it, on bus route that only comes once an hour, don’t think they allow walk-in coronavirus testing

Couldn’t find it at first, expecting big line of cars, we were the only vehicle!

County is paying for tests, trying to get anyone with symptoms to go through, cheek swab, they could probably do them in the mail except not sanitary

There were three separate ID checkpoints, driving around maze of cones set up for at least 30 cars at a time, “when we finish we’ll all have our driver’s licenses renewed too”

Watched 4-minute explainer video, make yourself cough several times, open sealed swab packet, 10 seconds each cheek, 10 seconds roof of mouth, don’t eat or drink anything for an hour ahead of time

Put swab in vial with liquid, snap off end of swab, screw top back on vial, shake it, put in bag

Procedure had changed from video, apparently people have sloppy handwriting, tech was there to fill out labels, one day this will all be app based, no touch, test vending machine or robot

Dangerous for a person to do, that poor woman standing in the sun in bunny suit and gloves sweating everywhere

When we were done and sealed, handed bags to another tech to drop in big trash can

Results in a few days, phone call for positive, email for negative

Hubby realized his was red from drink he had earlier, now we know, all three of us will have different results: Yes, No, Cherry

Had hoped testing site would offer both swab & antibody test, that is probably too complicated, antibody tests not standardized, huge relief not to get nasal swab

On the drive back we saw several groups of happy young people, one the boys had their masks hanging loose off their faces by one ear loop, another group only one of three kids had one, no distancing, are they siblings??

Drive-thru surfboard shop doing brisk business, beaches open next two counties down, our town has $1000 fine for surfing although some might be willing to pay it

Watching all this with lungful of fire and brimstone, smoke coming out my ears

Now we have a choice ahead of us. If the three of us all have matching tests, can we quaranteam? If we all test negative then it seems fair, although antibody tests would help

If we all test positive then is there a reason not to?

Saw in the news, poor young woman in quarantine 60 days, feels fine but keeps swabbing positive

We were all exposed, can this be true, 6 weeks ago??

Lovely friend and I have been quite ill for weeks, hubby has been sharing my bed all this time, hard to imagine we could expose each other any worse than we already have done, but then I am the weak link here, only one of the 12 in our cluster who still has symptoms

By the time we get our results I will be done with my course of antibiotics, very hard to tell what happens next except that I sure hope I feel better than I do right now

If you haven’t noticed, every week has a whole new set of rules, new world each time, your guess is as good as mine