On Getting Tested for Corona Virus.

I've decided to share my experience with COVID 19, partly because some people are claiming that the whole phenomenon isn't real. I doubt I'll change anyone's mind, but this is my experience.

Nephi, my husband, was sick with corona-like symptoms on March 12. He stayed home from work on the 13th and we tried to get him an appointment to be tested for COVID 19, but every medical person I spoke with said he wouldn't qualify if he hadn't traveled out of the country in the last month or been in close contact with someone who'd already tested positive. I was extra concerned because Nephi gets sick extremely rarely so it seemed unusual, and he has fairly severe asthma. We skipped a good friend's birthday party that evening because we didn't know what he had but wanted to err on the side of caution. We stopped leaving the house at all, except to walk the dogs. On Monday, Nephi went to a walk-in clinic and was tested for the flu, which came back negative. He was finally tested at my primary care physician's clinic on Tuesday, which, ironically, is when he started feeling better. They said it would take 2-10 days, but we wouldn't get the results for another two weeks.

March 13 is also the day we heard our kids would all have school at home for the next month, and my and Neph's offices both announced that everyone should start working from home.

I first started feeling weird, off, whatever you want to call it, on March 18. A fever would come and go, and its moments of absence made me wonder if it was all in my head. I felt lousy enough that I took the next day off work though. The fever and aches came and went for the next week. It also became a real struggle to concentrate effectively or think analytically, though that might have been from the mass anxiety and unease we're all experiencing from the pandemic and (in Utah, anyway) an earthquake and aftershocks. Whatever it was, it made working from home a real challenge.

On Friday, March 27 at around 11:00 or 11:30am, a fever hit for real, my eyes started burning, and my chest felt tight, like there was a baseball right behind my sternum. I still questioned my physical experience, like what if I was imagining this into coming true? Is that possible? If so, maybe I could talk myself right back out of it. But the fever kept creeping higher and my breathing got worse, so I called the Utah Corona Virus hotline around 3:30pm. A guy named Sid who talked like a cowboy answered the phone and asked me a lot of questions. Turns out his sister has the same birthday as me. I wondered to myself how Cowboy Sid ended up answering the Utah Corona Virus hotline. Sid told me I should get in to get tested ASAP before they closed for the day instead of waiting till the next day. 

I drove over to the IHC location closest to my house where a woman in a mask met me in the parking lot, verified that I'd been screened via phone before coming in, stuck a number on my windshield, and told me to stay in my car in the parking lot till they were ready for me. I was lucky number 44. When it was my turn to be tested, I drove into a tented parking space and a medical person in a body suit (like something out of the movie E.T.) came over and gave me a handout with information on it. When she tested me, she stuck a pair of 10 inch swabs up my nose, first one nostril and then the other. The first time was uncomfortable but the second time felt like being punched in the face, hard. She said I took it like a champ and would get my results in 2-7 days. Then I drove home, poured myself a little Aberlour scotch, and joined my coworkers for the end of a Friday Happy Hour video conference call (I really miss my coworkers).

The scotch was the last thing I would remember being able to taste for the next week or two (does time smear together for all of us now?). The next morning, my 20 year old son came into our bedroom. He was freaking out because he'd suddenly lost his sense of taste. I rolled my eyes at his melodrama, but later when I was drinking my morning americano, it tasted very watered down. Perplexed, I asked Nephi what beans he'd used. He held up the bag to show me: same beans as always, my favorite from Cafe Ibis. I privately wondered if he'd pulled a weak shot of espresso by accident. I didn't realize that it was a sign of things to come. Within a few hours, I'd completely lost my sense of taste and smell as well. It was most noticeable as a massive absence, a hole where something important should be. I could now understand Wolf's upset and no longer thought he was overreacting. Over the next week, I didn't have much of an appetite, but mouth-feel became the only thing that mattered when it came to food. I dumped cayenne on everything I ate, just to experience some taste sensation in my mouth, even it was just burning.

 A sense of absence, of loss, has come to define this whole experience.

(More later. I need a break. Lack of energy has also defined this experience.)