Covid, Part II

The Follow-Up!

Covid sucks.  A few days after Catherine’s diagnosis, I really started to feel weird.  The chest itch did not develop into a terrible cough like I feared it might, but I did start to suffer chills one day,  general achiness the next, congestion the day after that… it was like musical symptoms, only the melody was offkey and miserable like the crappy music Sai tries to play on the radio whenever we drive anywhere. 

After a few days of funkiness, my HR Dept informed me that I should obviously get my own test since I was suffering symptoms, thus removing my untapped sinus status.  Sai found a place that did not require an appointment and shuffled me out the door to drive forty-five minutes away in traffic to beat their six p.m. cutoff by a few minutes.  The testing was supposed to be reserved for local residents or people who worked in the county (neither of which applied to me), but since there was no one else there at the time, they agreed I could get tested anyway.  Lucky me! 

Staring straight ahead as he inserted, the little swizzle stick was in and out the left nostril in an instant, and I was back on the road heading home.  That was irritating, but hardly painful.  Though I felt like I needed to sneeze for the next two hours, I was otherwise unimpressed with the procedure.  Sure, Teddy’s pediatrician’s office went up both sides and my test was only a single poke, but I was left with the impression that my boy is a big baby.  They told me that it would take between five and ten days to get the results, which seemed excessive, but I didn’t have any plans anyway.

Sai and I continued to trade off time trying to work from home while balancing the children (neither of us could claim real productivity with them at home), as we waited for Covid to run its course and our super-spreader daycare to reopen.  That’s right, of the six families with children there (ours being the only with a double), five had confirmed positive kids, and several had sick parents too.  While baby Cat may have been patient zero in our household, I don’t think she started the trend at daycare.  I’m not defending her refusal to wear a mask and she’s terrible about covering her mouth when she coughs or sneezes.  Still, I think someone else brought the bug to school before my little girl brought it home.

Teddy’s test came back negative, and Catherine’s PCR confirmed her original positive.  Sai decided we had to do a better job of isolating our son, but again the basement dungeon option was denied.  What is the point of even having a creepy crawly basement if you can’t lock your kids up down there?  Instead we wore masks in the house and chased Teddy with an air purifier wherever he went.  As soon as I’d set it up in one place, he’d play in another room, forcing me to move the machine after him.  The fenced-in play area can contain the little girl, but the boy knows how to climb already. 

Two days before Christmas, some eleven days after Catherine’s initial diagnosis, we brought them back to the scene of the swabs for another round.  You know how dogs sense danger outside the vet’s?  Teddy’s spidey senses likewise kicked in as soon as we pulled into the parking lot.  As per usual, Sai took up her position of guarding the car while I dragged the children to be tortured (though I already said the test really wasn’t that bad based on my limited experience).  The doc checked their vitals and told me that there was no need for Catherine to get re-tested.  She had been fever-free for long enough and the Covid timed out (or whatever you want to call it).  I mentioned that I thought we needed a clear result for purposes of daycare, but they offered a letter explaining that Cat is good to go, which sounded good to me.  So I only had to hold one screaming child for the test this day.

While Catherine has been recuperating and Sai and I have been trying to figure out if we’re dying of coronavirus, Teddy has been growing stronger.  I’m not going to say that I was bested by a toddler, but it was a much tougher battle than I was expecting.  He screamed bloody murder, when it really only warranted screaming bloody nose at best (he didn’t bleed).  But I figured it was necessary to have a second test to demonstrate that he was still virus-free, after his week plus of exposure to his sick family.

Even though I still hadn’t received my own positive results, I needed my own negative test result to satisfy my office before I’d be allowed to return.  Rather than returning to the distant testing place that never results in results, Sai booked me an early telehealth consultation on Boxing Day that would allow me to get an open appointment for local testing. 

While the Canucks were doing whatever weird ritual it is they do on December 26^th, I talked to a bedraggled-looking physician’s assistant, (clearly she’s had to work hard during these hard times for our medical professionals), explaining that I thought I needed another test to prove that I was no longer a danger to society, coronavirally speaking at least.  Based on the old calendar method, if enough time has lapsed since symptom onset and you’re still fever-free, you’re supposed to be good to go (the theory that we were relying on to spare Catherine her third test).  Miss PA explained that another PCR test might not help my cause because some people are persistently positive, for months, whereby they continue to trip the test long after the point of infectiousness.  She offered me a letter explaining as much, which sounded good, but I was determined to get a second test anyway, figuring at a minimum I should have at least one result in hand, since the first test was apparently just a practice run.  I’ve also been called many things in my life, but never persistently positive; this is probably the polar opposite of my personality.    

So after holding Catherine for her two tests (her rapid and PCR, both on the same first day), and wrestling Teddy for his two rounds, I found myself sitting in for my second swabbing.  And wow, oww, they made up for the shortcoming of my first.  Up, up, up she went with the prod (after promising she wouldn’t go that far, liar!), then the dramatic pause like the top of the rollercoaster, only instead of the quick descent (out of my nose), this adrenaline junkie decided the ride needed a twist, as in a spin of the swab within.  Theodore, my dear, strong boy, I apologize for doubting your toughness!  And then she repeated the process up the right side. 

As the nightmare ended, I gradually returned to my senses, and was amused by the primitive radio god’s sense of humor as I heard Mick singing “you make a grown man cry”, while I wiped the tears from my eyes and went on my way.  “Start Me Up” shall forever more remind me of suffering. 

Some twelve hours later (as opposed to the twelve days or so I’ve been waiting for the first set of results), I received the positive news of negative news.  Not bad for a PCR (i.e. not a rapid) test! 

Catherine timed out of Covid.  Teddy was initially negative and never developed any symptoms, so we were confident that he was somehow naturally immune (since every other kid in his daycare had already tested positive), and I had my own negative results.  Sai subscribes to somewhere between the timing out theory of exposure and the Trumpian philosophy of no test = no Covid, and she hasn’t gotten her own test (yet?).  If she’d had it, there was nothing to be done about it.  If she hadn’t had it, she’d had enough time in quarantine anyway.  Got it?   

The next day, the phone rang, shattering our sense of invincibility or at least in-house herd immunity, as we heard that Teddy had tested positive in his second PCR.  Here we go again!  Covid keeps on giving, and it still sucks.