I get tested and wonder why I bothered.

Let’s be honest: COVID-19 has a lot of potential symptoms, some of which a normal person might have in a normal life, even without actually having the virus (or any serious illness at all).

After getting over a sinus infection that hit me hard in mid-February, I suffered from an on-again-off-again symptoms, including a dry cough, muscle aches and pains, headaches, nasal congestion/runny nose, and fatigue. My body temperature, which has always been a little low, was all over the place — until I discovered that my Kinsa bluetooth thermometer was FUBAR. Its warranty replacement gave more realistic readings that sometimes were a bit on the high side (for me, anyway). A pulse oximeter that I’d purchased to monitor blood oxygen levels gave me readings as low as 95%, which is the bottom end of what’s acceptable — the days with low readings matched the days I was completely wiped out with fatigue. I’d feel like total crap one day and perfectly fine two days later.

You might think I was entering the land of hypochondria and maybe I was. But to further confuse the issue, there were a lot of folks who tested positive for COVID-19 and had no symptoms at all. Or minor symptoms.

Could I be one of those people?

The Local Situation

Meanwhile, COVID-19 was taking off in the area where I live. I monitor the local case counts on the local newspaper, the Wenatchee World, website. We were not “flattening the curve.” In fact, case counts were rising steadily in the area. That came as no surprise to me, since this is the red side of a blue state and too many Fox News-brainwashed Trump voters were refusing to wear masks in public and pretty much carrying on as if there were no worldwide health emergency. I, for one, am completely sick of people trying to turn a health issue into a political issue, but here we are.

 
Graphic representation of new cases in North Central Washington (left) and Chelan County (right).

Of course, it didn’t help much that I occasionally did get out and about among people who refused to wear masks. Although I limit my grocery shopping to just once every two weeks or so, I’ve seen enough supermarket employees and customers not wearing masks to know that any one of them could have infected something in my cart or the very air I walked through on my way to grab a half gallon of milk. Ditto for the few other shops I visited on my early morning forays into the world beyond my neighborhood. Like my brother says — and I fully believe — we’re all going to get it sooner or later. Although I’d like to put off my bout with COVID-19 until they have better data on the virus, treatments, and vaccines, for all I knew, I could already have a mild or asymptomatic case.

So I went for a test.

The Test

I made a few phone calls and was finally connected to the Confluence Health COVID-19 Response Team. (If you’re local, call 509-663-8711 and press 1 when prompted.) I was asked about symptoms and I gave them my on-again-off-again symptom list. They gave me the address of a drive up testing facility in Wenatchee about 12 miles from my home.

My sister, who lives in Florida, had warned me that it was common for folks there to wait 8 hours or more in their cars, only to be sent home when the testing place closed before their turn. Because of that, I asked about lines. I was told that the lines were shortest early in the day, right after they opened at 9. So rather than go the day I called, I went the next morning (Thursday), driving into what turned out to be a closed bank parking lot. The testing was set up at what had been drive-up banking lanes.

A team of nurses stands by with computers to perform COVID-19 tests at a closed bank’s drive-up banking lanes in Wenatchee, WA.

I was the only car there.

It was a gorgeous day and I’d driven in my old Honda S2000 with the top down. My pups were in the passenger seat beside me. I figured the low convertible would be easier for the testers and I think it was.

They took my name and date of birth and found my record. They asked about symptoms and I told them the same thing I’d told the person on the phone.

Then one nurse handed me a bunch of Kleenex while another one came at me with a swab on a long stick. I moved my mask away from my nose, keeping my mouth covered, and she inserted the swab into one nostril. I’d been prepared for what I knew would be unpleasant, but this was worse than I imagined. It didn’t hurt, but it sure was uncomfortable. I was convinced she was trying to swab my brain. And it didn’t help that the dogs decided that was a good time to jump on my lap and chest.

I actually tried to get my head away from her — the car’s headrest made that impossible though — before she finally reached her target and pulled out the swab. It still felt as if the swab was in there. My nose was immediately all sniffly and I was glad for the tissues. I blew my nose and saw some blood on the tissue, but not enough to whine about.

“You’ll have your results in 24 to 48 hours,” she told me after securing the sample in a vial.

“You’ll call?” I asked.

“It’ll be on your MyChart,” she told me.

MyChart is my healthcare provider’s attempt to provide service without directly contacting patients. They put messages and test results there that I never see or hear about because I never think to look there for communication. I hate MyChart and turned it off.

“I don’t use MyChart,” I told her. “I need someone to call. Leave a message if I don’t answer.” (The chances of me not answering my phone during cherry season are slim to none.)

“Okay,” she assured me.

“Positive or negative, right?”

“Yes. If you don’t hear from us in 48 hours, call.”

I thanked her and drove off. I’d feel as if I had a swab up my nose for the rest of the day.

The Results

Time passed. I didn’t feel any different. I did a lot of work around the yard and garden. I finished a piece of jewelry that had been torturing me with difficult solder joins. I hopped on my ATV and applied weed spray from a 25 gallon tank on 1-1/2 miles of neighborhood road. I did my cherry drying billing and wrote checks for my pilots. I made a cake.

I made the cake on Sunday, which was more than 48 hours after the test. I hadn’t heard anything and couldn’t check MyChart because it had been disabled by Confluence Health at my request. So I had this giant cake and I wanted to share it with neighbors. But what if the results came back and I had the virus? My cake could potentially infect my friends.

It was a big cake.

So I called Confluence Health on Sunday, waited on hold long enough that I thought perhaps their phone tree didn’t know they were closed, and finally got an answer from a woman who sounded very stressed. I told her my results were overdue.

“Well, some of the tests are taking longer than 48 hours,” she told me.

I tried not to get angry about that. I live in a world where I routinely overstate how long something takes so when I deliver more quickly, people are grateful.

She took my name and date of birth and found my record. “Are you still coughing?” she asked.

“Coughing?”

“Yes,” she said. “You told them you had a cough.”

“I have a lot of symptoms that come and go,” I told her. “I explained that to them on the phone and in person.”

“Well, do you still have them?”

“They come and go,” I repeated, wondering what I was saying that she didn’t understand.

“Well, your test results were negative, but there is a chance of false negatives so if you’re still having symptoms you should isolate until 48 hours after all symptoms are gone.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. As I’ve already mentioned above, the symptoms I was having could be symptoms of anything. Hell, aches and pains could be a symptom of being in my 50s and doing too much work in the yard.

I realized that I was no better off than I had been before I’d taken the test. I found myself almost wishing the results had been positive so at least I knew what the symptoms were from and that there was a good chance I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t get very sick from the virus.

I thanked her and hung up.

I started making arrangements with neighbors to drop off huge hunks of that delicious cake.

My Conclusions

After all this, I do have some conclusions.

• The test is extremely unpleasant, but it is quick and literally painless. If you can get tested, do it. I’m a firm believer that we all should get tested if we can.
• The test only tells you what your situation is on the day you took the test. If it comes out negative, that doesn’t mean you can’t get infected the day after the test. And since false negatives (and perhaps false positives?) are possible, I’m not sure how useful it is. (Still, see the previous point.)
• Some symptoms are a better indicator of infection than others. Apparently, 70% of all positive cases also suffer from loss of smell or taste. (I got that on NPR the other day but I’m too lazy to track down the actual news story right now.)
• We have a lot to learn about the virus. The only way we can learn that is to test people and closely monitor symptoms of those who test positive, even if they are asymptomatic. (See the first point.)

The situation is worsening in this country, as well as other countries where those at the head of government are not properly advising the populace and setting up a workable plan to fight infection. It’s not just Trump in the United States, but it’s also Johnson in the United Kingdom and Bolsanaro in Brazil. These people are turning a health issue into a political issue — when it so clearly isn’t. Meanwhile, other countries with leaders who are willing to listen to scientists and doctors — like Ardern in New Zealand — are beating the virus back and restoring their economies.

We need a uniting force at the head of our government to bring us together to fight the threat. Until we have that in this country, masks, closures, unemployment, illnesses, and death will be the new normal.