My girlfriend had not seen her family in over 18 months. She usually visits them every holiday. Several children had been born that she had never seen other than on social media videos.
We have both been extremely careful by self isolating and wearing masks. We were both vaccinated the first chance we had. In some ways she is even more careful them I am. When she said she had to get back out to the Midwest to see family therefor, I supported her. I have no desire to travel by plane in a pandemic but if anyone can do it safely she is the person. I stayed behind to watch her dogs while she was gone.
Her parents live on a wide open farm but they look after the grandchildren quite often and that means the home is a it like Grand Central station. Both parents had been vaccinated because they knew their daughter would not visit otherwise. The siblings and their children, some being too young to get vaccinated, however were another issue.
My girlfriend was so thankful for the time she got to spend with family. She took a COVID home test at her parents and another test when she got back home. She tested negative with the home test kit she had purchased. Then she got a call from her mom. Someone in the family had just tested positive for COVID-19. Home test kits aren’t 100% accurate so we both decided we had to get nasopharangeal Swab PCR tests to be sure. I needed to teach a class on the weekend and wanted to be sure I was not infected. We decided to go to the Econ Soccer field test site. We got there an hour early in the morning and cars were already lined up. It must be horrible to live in this neighborhood that has so many cars waiting for COVID tests.
Once 9 Am rolled around the cars inched up quickly. We had to register online and we quickly filled out the information as we inched forward. My girlfriend was swabbed first. The test involved scrapping deep inside her nose until she cried. I was afraid my testor might be just as gung ho but my nasal swabbing didn’t bother me as much. I was hoping to get the results before my class but it became clear that wouldn’t happen. It takes several days for results. I tried to set up a virtual class with my students, but couldn’t wrangle them all. It was safer just to cancel the class and reschedule.
My girlfriend got her results first and she tested negative. That was some relief but I was still anxious to see my results. I have been coughing for weeks, which I assumed was allergies. Finally, three days later I got my results. Getting to the results however was a major digital nightmare of forms and pop up windows along with setting up a digital password. All I wanted to read was negative or positive. It took about half an hour to navigate thorough the site. I then finally read the sentence I was searching for, “The reference interval for this assay is negative. A negative result does not rule out the presence of PCR inhibitors in the patient specimen.” What is a reference interval? What is an assay? Whatever, I sighed relief and started another horrific COVID-19 illustration.