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brin_bellway[cw: (strong) illness, (strong) medical stuff, (mild) Christmas]
(part 1)
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My lifelogger archive for yesterday is less than half the size of a normal *quiet* day. You can really tell I barely talked to anyone (and also didn't do any cooking or dishwashing).
---
I asked Dad to roll the windows down while we drove over, for his protection.
---
The drive-thru testing centre is rather like a border crossing, but with several stages of border guards: one at the entrance checking that I had an appointment and that I was high-risk enough to be at this testing centre instead of a pharmacy, one checking my health card and confirming my basic personal information, one taking my history and writing it down on one of a stack of clipboards, one doing the actual sinus swab.
I suggested to Dad that we roll the windows up now that we were in line with a bunch of sick people, some of whom *also* had open windows: "caught COVID-19 while waiting in line for a flu vaccine" is bad enough irony-wise, I really don't want "caught actual COVID-19 while getting tested for suspected-but-negative COVID-19". (This is also why I specifically chose the drive-thru centre: I figured it would be better ventilated than something more indoor.)
At first he thought the threat from me would still outweigh the threat from them, with the open air and all that, but I talked him around (quietly and with about as few words as possible: I know talking is dangerous) after we heard the history-taker tell the pair of people ahead of us that it sounded like they probably *did* have COVID.
(Outdoor testing centres are *less* terrifying, but it's still pretty terrifying.)
---
You could *not* pay me enough to work these people's jobs.
Is that bad? Is that perverse incentives, where the people best mentally equipped to perform anti-disease safety procedures are also the ones least willing to deliberately put themselves, day after day, into situations where such procedures are needed? Like people say politicians are, where the only people who would volunteer for the position are the people one should never allow to hold it?
Maybe not. Maybe infection-specialist healthcare workers are just *really* altruistic. I'm told altruism is a thing many people experience, sometimes very strongly. I guess we're all very fortunate that they do: enlightened self-interest can drag you to an infectious-disease clinic as a *patient*, but can it drag you there as *staff*?
I thought about the nursing student I met last year. I wonder how he's doing. I wonder if he's still glad he didn't become an accountant.
---
When we reached the testing station after about 50 minutes, they were playing an incredibly incongruous Christmas radio. 'Please,' I thought, 'historical-horror-movie maker, *please* have a scene where they drive up to the COVID-testing centre and it's playing "Feliz Navidad".'
The music stopped at some point partway through "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I can't help but wonder if they turned it off after realising how much of a slap in the face that song, in particular, is.
(Well, the Sinatra version, anyway. The *first* draft of the song, on the other hand...)
---
I don't think I would *personally* describe the feeling of a sinus swab as "like scraping across your brain", but it *does* hurt. And it keeps hurting, fading slowly to a dull ache over the course of about ten minutes. It's been about 2.5 hours as I write this and my right nostril still feels slightly off, though it's quite subtle now.
She gave me a paper on where to find my test results and how long my self-isolation should last under various possible scenarios, plus a paper detailing what exactly they mean by "self-isolation". I crudely digitised the papers by using my smartphone to take pictures of them sitting on the seat opposite me as we drove home: yeah, I know the world would look very different if fomite spread were *generally* significant, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to bring *physical objects* from a *COVID-19 testing centre* into my *house*.
(obviously I disinfected the phone, and I'm thinking I'll probably *also* quarantine it just in case I missed anything)
Under my scenario--"showed symptoms + not known to have had close contact with a case + no international travel"--self-isolation lasts ten days from Monday with a positive test result, and "24 hours since symptoms started improving" with a negative result (read: immediately after I get the result as long as things don't worsen between now and then, because at this point I haven't had symptoms in over 24 hours).
---
I'm going to go inform Meta-Boss that I may or may not be in quarantine this weekend. Mom thinks I should imply that this happened because of the initially-maskless coughing customer I had on Sunday night. 26 hours is an awfully fast onset for it to be that, but fuck it, it's not like having that dude around *helped*.
(After about the fourth or fifth cough--the first two of which were before he went back out and got a mask--I asked him to wait outside, and somewhat to my surprise he agreed without a fight. I took the rest of the order from his early-adolescent children, who were quite possibly germy themselves (they say children are often asymptomatic) but at least weren't forcefully expelling it. Obviously I'm not going to tell Meta-Boss I said anything to the dude: I'd probably get in trouble.)
---
(edit: part 3)
(part 1)
---
My lifelogger archive for yesterday is less than half the size of a normal *quiet* day. You can really tell I barely talked to anyone (and also didn't do any cooking or dishwashing).
---
I asked Dad to roll the windows down while we drove over, for his protection.
---
The drive-thru testing centre is rather like a border crossing, but with several stages of border guards: one at the entrance checking that I had an appointment and that I was high-risk enough to be at this testing centre instead of a pharmacy, one checking my health card and confirming my basic personal information, one taking my history and writing it down on one of a stack of clipboards, one doing the actual sinus swab.
I suggested to Dad that we roll the windows up now that we were in line with a bunch of sick people, some of whom *also* had open windows: "caught COVID-19 while waiting in line for a flu vaccine" is bad enough irony-wise, I really don't want "caught actual COVID-19 while getting tested for suspected-but-negative COVID-19". (This is also why I specifically chose the drive-thru centre: I figured it would be better ventilated than something more indoor.)
At first he thought the threat from me would still outweigh the threat from them, with the open air and all that, but I talked him around (quietly and with about as few words as possible: I know talking is dangerous) after we heard the history-taker tell the pair of people ahead of us that it sounded like they probably *did* have COVID.
(Outdoor testing centres are *less* terrifying, but it's still pretty terrifying.)
---
You could *not* pay me enough to work these people's jobs.
Is that bad? Is that perverse incentives, where the people best mentally equipped to perform anti-disease safety procedures are also the ones least willing to deliberately put themselves, day after day, into situations where such procedures are needed? Like people say politicians are, where the only people who would volunteer for the position are the people one should never allow to hold it?
Maybe not. Maybe infection-specialist healthcare workers are just *really* altruistic. I'm told altruism is a thing many people experience, sometimes very strongly. I guess we're all very fortunate that they do: enlightened self-interest can drag you to an infectious-disease clinic as a *patient*, but can it drag you there as *staff*?
I thought about the nursing student I met last year. I wonder how he's doing. I wonder if he's still glad he didn't become an accountant.
---
When we reached the testing station after about 50 minutes, they were playing an incredibly incongruous Christmas radio. 'Please,' I thought, 'historical-horror-movie maker, *please* have a scene where they drive up to the COVID-testing centre and it's playing "Feliz Navidad".'
The music stopped at some point partway through "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I can't help but wonder if they turned it off after realising how much of a slap in the face that song, in particular, is.
(Well, the Sinatra version, anyway. The *first* draft of the song, on the other hand...)
---
I don't think I would *personally* describe the feeling of a sinus swab as "like scraping across your brain", but it *does* hurt. And it keeps hurting, fading slowly to a dull ache over the course of about ten minutes. It's been about 2.5 hours as I write this and my right nostril still feels slightly off, though it's quite subtle now.
She gave me a paper on where to find my test results and how long my self-isolation should last under various possible scenarios, plus a paper detailing what exactly they mean by "self-isolation". I crudely digitised the papers by using my smartphone to take pictures of them sitting on the seat opposite me as we drove home: yeah, I know the world would look very different if fomite spread were *generally* significant, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to bring *physical objects* from a *COVID-19 testing centre* into my *house*.
(obviously I disinfected the phone, and I'm thinking I'll probably *also* quarantine it just in case I missed anything)
Under my scenario--"showed symptoms + not known to have had close contact with a case + no international travel"--self-isolation lasts ten days from Monday with a positive test result, and "24 hours since symptoms started improving" with a negative result (read: immediately after I get the result as long as things don't worsen between now and then, because at this point I haven't had symptoms in over 24 hours).
---
I'm going to go inform Meta-Boss that I may or may not be in quarantine this weekend. Mom thinks I should imply that this happened because of the initially-maskless coughing customer I had on Sunday night. 26 hours is an awfully fast onset for it to be that, but fuck it, it's not like having that dude around *helped*.
(After about the fourth or fifth cough--the first two of which were before he went back out and got a mask--I asked him to wait outside, and somewhat to my surprise he agreed without a fight. I took the rest of the order from his early-adolescent children, who were quite possibly germy themselves (they say children are often asymptomatic) but at least weren't forcefully expelling it. Obviously I'm not going to tell Meta-Boss I said anything to the dude: I'd probably get in trouble.)
---
(edit: part 3)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-19 04:03 pm (UTC)Still a great movie scene, though.