I don't feel particularly ill, but I am sick. For the first couple of days, I assumed that the light upper-respiratory scratchiness was just my occasional asthma kicking up. It's not that bad, you see; I just get a bit of a light cough, a slight scratchy feeling, some squealy noises that can keep me awake. I'd just spent a couple of days cleaning out a
space known for backlogged dust mites and mold spores; a touch of an allergic reaction was hardly unexpected. A single puff of Ventolin cleared it right up on the first day, so I just assumed that's what's going on. On the second day when I woke up with a slight sore throat, I wasn't at all alarmed: I also woke up with a drool-covered pillow and a mouth so dry that sandpaper would've felt refreshing — and a liter of water fixed things nicely. Thus it was that only on day three, yesterday, was I truly ready to face that I have the dreaded "cold-and-flu-like symptoms", albeit in extreme moderation.
Under normal circumstances, I would write it off as a light cold — which is exactly what it feels like it is; this isn't something that would have kept me home from work, in the old days — but these aren't normal circumstances, as you well know.
This is the worst possible time for there to be a pandemic; I'm sure this holds true for many, many people around the globe. Circumstances conspire that for us, for my family, had the invading microbe waited just one more year to get started, everything would be different. Again, I'm sure we're far from alone. But really, if I
were to pick one single fortnight which would be worst possible moment in the past three years and the entire foreseeable future for one of us to get sick, it would be THIS one. Let me tell you why.
It's medical stuff. Two medical stuffs, to be specific, one mine and one my daughter's. Mine is by far the less important, and fortunately is also not the one which represents the end of a three-year waiting list and is so far the only one definitively affected. It's my hand, you see. It's still giving me trouble. The physiotherapist isn't happy, the ergotherapist isn't happy, and I'm not happy.
It's not so bad, it's getting better, but it's atypical and it's not progressing like they'd like. They referred me back to the GP, therefor, to get a steroid shot into the tendon to bring down the inflammation so that we can work on building my arm up to protect the thumb joint before wearing the brace completely debilitates my
hand. Unfortunately, the GP finds it too atypical to do in the office, which I understand, and referred me to an excellent hand clinic — where my appointment was scheduled for this coming Monday, three days from now. Obviously that's off the table, and has been preliminarily rescheduled for a week later pending further information.
My daughter's appointment is on Wednesday, which also happens to be my birthday. The waiting list for this appointment was officially two years long, but this is now and COVID-19 has thrown a great number of wrenches into everybody's works, and it turned into three years. Can we go? I'll know that within two days. Today, I went to get a COVID-19 test. I should get the results within 48 hours, at which point we'll know just how screwed up things are… or are not. If I test negative and I throw
this off because it's just a light cold, and my daughter doesn't have any cold symptoms by Wednesday, it can still happen. If I test positive, it cannot. If she gets sick even if it is just a cold, it cannot. If I don't get better by Tuesday it cannot (but if it is just a cold, I will). What this does not mean, happily, is having to start the waiting list over — that would be a nightmare beyond contemplation. No, this appointment is an intake to begin the medical side of her journey to become herself in full, and thus many appointments stretching months and even years into the future will be planned in the long run, so the intake, should we be unable to go, would simply be moved to the next slot. But come on, we've been waiting three years for this now and it's really important!
This is stunning timing. Here's hoping that test comes back negative.
Getting tested here is a breeze now. If I had a car it would be a downright cinch (not that I want one). If my back and knees had let me ride a bicycle during that one period, I would still have one now, and would probably be able to ride it, and that too would have been quick and
easy. Oh well! It's irresponsible to take public transport or a taxi during a massive global pandemic driven by a violently contagious coronavirus, and I don't have a driver's license — haven't since the 1990's — so I can't borrow and then disinfect a neighbor's car, one of the suggestions on the government's information page.
Given that I am capable of it, that left walking. Like I said, I don't feel all that ill, but it was quite an exhausting slog — 45 minutes each way — because I don't feel all that well either. The weather was unusually congenial for late January, I'm pleased to say, and I got some OK photos, which I'm using to illustrate this blog entry (except the last one, of the magpies; I took that something like a week ago). I made the appointment last night, online, once I was absolutely certain that these symptoms are viral (with several chronic health problems, sometimes it can be hard to tell what constitutes an invasive force like a virus or bacterium and what is "just normal"). It was easy: just fill out a little form on the government's website, receive the text and email confirmations, and you're good to go.
Even though it's cold, it wasn't windy this morning on my way there and the sun was shining so it was pretty pleasant overall. I had fewer photo opportunities than I'd hoped (usually lots and lots of waterfowl out that way, occasionally a rabbit, songbirds) but some things did present themselves, including a field fenced off and lonely in the middle of a city block, usually a sign that something done there in the past contaminated the ground, a building stood there for centuries and is now gone, and nobody has bought the plot yet to decontaminate it (which is expensive) and do something with it. A lot of the time this has to do with the fact that in medieval times, this area was a European hub for fabric bleaching. This field constituted a layer of topsoil over rubble which in turn was covered in years' worth of thriving plant life, generation after generation of native wildflower, shrubs, all that stuff.
In this sudden quasi-pastoral square was a group of 20 or so very tiny birds so far away I couldn't tell what they were. They were eating on the ground and then suddenly fluttering to another spot to continue browsing. Sorry the
picture's blurry, they were very far away, but as you can see they turned out to be European goldfinches, which is exciting for me since I saw my first goldfinch only last week and my photo of it is very much worse than this. None of the pictures of the distant swan by the warship turned out, I'm sorry, but one of the ones of the Egyptian goose did. All in all, despite being unwell, it wasn't a bad walk (but I'm very tired now). I even impressed some new crows with my ability and willingness to suddenly dispense cat food! To be honest, though, I hope not to have to be out that way often enough to get to know them very well.
Once at the testing site, in an industrial area outside the city proper, one enters a short street, literally called a "test street" in Dutch, designed for efficient through-flow traffic. It's easy to see where to go: because this is a drive-and-walk-through testing center,
there are big orange reflective cones set up to get people in the right direction. Additionally, just as one reaches the cones, a friendly member of the fire department, masked and maintaining distance, appears from a little hut like a video game NPC to provide further, more detailed directions on how to proceed through the huge, open warehouse. Everything is very clearly marked and well staffed. Today, I was about 20 minutes early but things were moving along nicely and there was no line: just one person already being tested, one person already being identified, and me.
The fireman manning the front lines immediately noticed my camera, so we chatted about wild birds for two or three minutes (he told me about where he lives, up north, all meadows and wetlands and forest and birds, and I told him about the goldfinches*) until the person being tested was
done, the marvelous go-between dude wiped the chair down and broomsticked a test packet to the central medical tent, and ID-guy moved up for his own medical attentions. Then he was done too and it was just a matter of crosschecking that I was the right person to be there at that time, getting a swab rammed down my throat and up my nose in an exceptionally professional manner, and I was on my way for the walk back.
And that's about it. I'll keep you posted; I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow, but based on how it's going probably not bad: my symptoms so far are just a light sore throat, upper lung irritation, tiredness. So fingers crossed for us, folks; the hand is what it is, so what, but my daughter's appointment is really important and I'd rather she didn't have to wait any longer for it.
Stay well, folks, and stay safe.
*Fun fact! Recently I learned that even though "goud vink" literally means "gold finch" in Dutch, the Dutch word "goudvink" refers not to a goldfinch, but to the English bullfinch. Language is weird.
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