I am recovering from Justacold. Or maybe it is just January, I don’t know.
Covid Exhaustion
I woke up last Wednesday with a sore throat and sniffles, and immediately assumed it was Covid. Especially when I learned that Carla and I had been in a group setting with a person who had since been diagnosed with Covid. I was sure of it. And yet, two rapid tests said no, not Covid. My husband and I looked at each other. Do we TRUST the rapid tests? What if they were wrong and I DID have Covid, and I was now unnecessarily exposing my husband and kid to Covid? Ugh.
The thing is, there seems (STILL) to be no reliable consensus on anything. Do I need to isolate or quarantine? What, pray tell, is the ever-loving difference between isolation and quarantine? Is it okay if I drive my kid to school, while masked? Does being in a room with someone who later tested positive for Covid an “exposure” if we are all vaccinated and masked? Is being masked in my house enough to protect my family, or do I need to hole up in the guest room? I read various articles to try to address these questions. I consulted the CDC website. I still cannot tell you what the right thing to do is.
Fortunately! We have a small supply of rapid tests! I will just take a rapid test and then I will know and can move on with my life!
Oh wait. There’s no consensus there, either.
I read articles that said Covid rapid tests are very sensitive and great in terms of giving you peace of mind. I read articles that said rapid tests aren’t as good at detecting the omicron variant. I read articles saying that rapid tests aren’t great at detecting the virus early on. I read articles that said you can trust a positive result but you need to confirm a negative rapid test with a PCR. I read articles that said if you get a negative while you have symptoms, you’re probably negative. I read articles that said the more rapid-test negatives you get, the less likely it is you have Covid. This all mainly pointed to me not having Covid… But none of it was DEFINITIVE enough for me.
So I scheduled a PCR test (I was very lucky to find one at a nearby CVS the next day) and stopped wasting our small supply of rapid tests.
To make a very long and boring story shorter but still boring: my Covid test came back negative two days later. Even though I felt, the whole time, fairly certain I did not have Covid, I wore a mask at home and isolated for the four days between when I first experienced symptoms and when I got the results. Here is how I defined isolating: I stayed in my office or the guest room, with the doors closed, as often as possible. (It was surprisingly difficult to remember to CLOSE THE DOORS when I left one of those spaces, which seems like kind of a critical step in keeping the germs where they needed to be. I got better at it, though.) I ate meals in my office, I slept in the guest room. When I was walking to and from the bathroom/kitchen, I wore a mask. (I did drive my kid to and from school, and we both wore a mask in the car.) It was lonely but I got a lot of reading and writing done.
Obviously, I am very glad I don’t have Covid. But I also feel really stupid. That’s the rub, right? You do the prudent, cautious thing justincase and then you feel silly when it turns out you didn’t have be prudent or cautious. I wasted an entire box of rapid tests! I missed two nights of putting my kid to sleep for no reason! I mussed up the guest room sheets for no reason! Of course, if my result had been positive, I would be feeling entirely differently. I would be feeling wise and prescient. My husband would be congratulating me on my carefulness and foresight. It’s a lose lose situation. You either feel stupid or you have Covid.
Justacold
Also, I still feel very yucky. My throat is still scratchy. My head aches. I am not super hungry (MAJOR RED FLAG FOR ME). Maybe I should have gotten the flu test add-on CVS asked if I wanted when I got my PCR. (It’s not flu either, hypochondriac.)
Office Mishaps
Prior to getting justacold, I went for my annual gynecological exam. This year, I saw a new doctor. The office was certainly nicer than the previous office, and the staff was MUCH friendlier. Plus, the waiting room was very roomy and the seats were set well apart from one another.
(The main reason I sought out a new doctor was that last year, I waited for an hour in my gynecologist’s waiting room, during which time NO staff member updated us with the doctor’s status, and the waiting room filled up with people, many of whom were coughing. I think you will understand that my blood pressure shot up over the course of my wait – indeed, it was higher than normal when the nurse measured it – but she gave me a LECTURE about my blood pressure rather than listening to my explanation that I was stressed about being crammed into a tiny space with a dozen strangers during a pandemic. At every appointment since, my blood pressure has been JUST FINE thank you very much. I am not over it, it seems.)
The nurse called my name and led me over to the scale (UGH) and I mentioned to her that I’d never met the doctor before. And she said, “Uh oh, I don’t have you on my schedule as a new patient.” Right away, that made me nervous. Do you know this? Doctors allot different amounts of time based on the patient’s needs, and one of the scheduling considerations is new patient vs. established patient. Just like a hairdresser needs more time if they are going to color your hair rather than give you a trim, a doctor needs more time with a new patient than with someone they know. So now I was meeting a new doctor, but already putting her behind schedule because my appointment had been mis-scheduled for X minutes instead of Xx2 minutes.
Then we went into the exam room and the nurse took my blood pressure (it was PERFECT) and asked me a few questions, and then gave me instructions about changing into the gown. (Instructions which I always, always forget. Is it supposed to be open in the front, or the back???) But then she said, “Wait, it’s so cold in here… and the doctor is in with another patient… don’t change yet. I’ll poke my head in and let you know when to change.”
I then sat in the exam room for thirty minutes, and with every minute that ticked by, I thought, “Oh no, the nurse has forgotten about me. And the doctor is going to come in, and I will be in my street clothes, and she will be frustrated because she will have to leave while I change, and she already doesn’t have enough time allotted for my visit as it is.” But I didn’t want to change into the gown because I was afraid the instant I removed my shirt, the nurse or the doctor would open the door. And the nurse would think, “Why is she changing when I told her to wait?” and the doctor would think, “Why isn’t she changed already?” And then five minutes would pass, and I would think, “WHY didn’t I change? I had enough time!” Finally, I told myself, “Just DO it.” And I grabbed the gown (fabric rather than paper, which I love!) and started pulling my arm out of my shirt sleeve, and at that exact moment the doctor knocked on the door and came in.
I immediately threw the nurse under the bus. I’m so sorry to her, she was lovely. But the doctor waved it off as I tried to stuff my arm back into my sleeve. “I like to chat with my patients first,” she said.
Outside of that humiliation, the appointment was fine. This doctor gives the impression of having a lot more time than she probably does. My old doctor, while still being kind and unhurried, was more of an in, out, goodbye kind of a person.
How Do I Get Medical Schools to Make This a Mandatory Part of Training?
One thing this doctor did that I really, really liked was after the exam, she said, “What questions do you have for me?”
And then she listened to my question, answered, and then asked the same thing again. She did this three times, and I thought it was such an excellent approach. It made me feel like I should have questions, and gave me space to ask them. Often in the past, I have written a list of the topics I wanted to bring up, and then felt too time-pressured to raise them. Even on the occasions when I was able to gather the courage to ask, I would never get to my whole list because I felt like the doctor was edging toward the door while addressing the first issue. She wasn’t, but she never asked if I had more questions, so it felt more like she was humoring me than actually interested in/available to address what I wanted to know. Anyway, this new physician not only expected me to have questions, she expected me to have multiple questions, and she remained seated while listening to me ask them. It was great. All doctors should do that.
Suggestion Box
All doctors should also have cloth gowns (in reality, I know cloth gowns and their care are not practical or economical for many practices). They are SO MUCH better than the stupid paper ones. My previous doctor would give you a paper vest and a paper sheet, and I always felt so awful and exposed. The cloth gown actually covers my body.
This reminds me of a Twitter thread? Reddit thread? Buzzfeed article? that I read when surely I should have been doing anything else. Some doctor was opening up a new practice and asked for people’s ideas about what a new pelvic health practice should have/do. (Oh, it was this thread.) I think using cloth gowns was on the list, as were a lot of awesome things like not assuming all patients are female, and ensuring that patient diversity is represented in photos/artwork/literature, and offering a nonverbal way to signal that the patient is not safe with whomever accompanied them to the appointment.
Some suggested cool quality-improvement ideas, like installing a light switch the patient could flip when they are changed. Or putting warmers over the stirrups (my previous gynecologist had socks on her exam table stirrups). Or providing a restroom connected to the exam room for easy changing/washing up. I mean, if a practice is truly building from the ground up and can cover the costs of these things, sign me up!
Someone suggested making the atmosphere spa-like. Which made me laugh and laugh. No matter how spa-like my gyno’s office is, even if they switch to spa-style robes (like another commenter said were available at her gyno), I am never going to enjoy going there.
Peering Through the Doors as They Close
While I was waiting, in between panicking about whether I should undress or not, I kept reading and rereading the one framed piece of “art” on the wall. I am calling it “art” because it had a photo, I think, of a mother and a baby, and the text was in a fancy script, arranged in short lines like a poem. But really it was information about how skin-to-skin contact is important, and how new mothers should make it clear to their OBs and everyone at the hospital that they want to have at least an hour of skin-to-skin contact with the baby immediately after birth!
This information is familiar to me. I planned to do skin-to-skin and immediate breastfeeding when my baby was born. But when Carla arrived, I only got to hold her very briefly before she was whisked off to the NICU. So this piece of art briefly made me feel very sad about that, that I didn’t get the birth experience that I wanted. I feel a lot less sad about it now, which is nice; pain does fade over time. And then I wondered very briefly what it would be like, if I had another baby. If we would get the birth I wanted. Oh well. It’s not going to happen.
The new doctor asked me if I had any children, and if I was planning on any more. And I said, “No, I don’t think so.” And she said, “You don’t think so? Well, if you think you might, you need to get cracking!”
Sure, sometimes – usually when I have fallen into a rabbit hole of Baby Carla videos, or when I find out someone is pregnant, or when I see someone pushing a stroller around the neighborhood – I’ll get a little twinge. Once the endless nausea finally abated, I enjoyed being pregnant. From this distance, the baby months seem precious and easy. And I would like to have a toddler again — they are so cute. (Do you see how my brain neatly skips past all the difficult, sleepless, maddening parts?) Did we make a mistake, just having one? But most of the time – I’d say 99% of the time – I feel like our little family is complete. And I guess with every day that passes, the more irreversible that fact becomes. It feels right, the three of us. But as with almost any situation where walking through one door means that you aren’t able to go through others, I am a little wistful about it.
Like a Peach or an Apricot or a Kiwi (?)
As long as we are talking about health topics, I will mention that I have two ENORMOUS bruises on my leg. One of them is the same circumference as a Noxzema face cream jar. I measured it in the bathroom and my measuring devices were limited. It’s a GIANT BRUISE, is what I’m saying. Of course, I have no idea how or when or why I obtained this bruise. Based solely on YA/middle grade fiction from childhood, I am convinced it is leukemia. (The websites I consulted were much less apt to jump to this conclusion, and more likely to blame it on my advanced age and thinning skin.)
I feel pretty confident in suspecting that you and most people reading this post would also jump to a conclusion that would fall into the Imminent Death category. But what I want to know is, are there people who DON’T do that? They must exist, right? Are they all Capricorns?
I think maybe my husband might be this type of person? He strikes me as a pretty practical fellow. Despite knowing WAY MORE about the many and varying paths to Imminent Death. But then again, maybe he is just good at putting on a Brave Face when confronted with the alarming proximity of his demise. I don’t know.
(“You just bruise easily,” he says to me, matter-of-fact and exasperated in equal measures. “You always have bruises.”)
If I have mistakenly assigned YOU my own death-focused personality trait, and you are, in fact, a person who sees a bruise and thinks, “Oh a bruise” or gets a headache and thinks “Oh, let me have some Tylenol” instead of CANCER ANEURYSM SURELY MY DAYS ARE NOW ENDING, please tell me all about yourself and what it’s like to be you.
Firstly, your humour is my favourite thing ever! I love how disjointed the world is on covid, and it almost seems like the CDC is going against medical advice… I wonder where they get the advice from…
But your justacold better stay just that. If it worsens, please tell me so I can kick its butt!
PS, I’m also as dramatic as you are in self diagnosing 😅 I don’t bruise so I can’t relate, but I’d be like “OMG internal bleeding!” Then Google how long it would take for me to bleed out internally 🥴
I’m a Taurus – maybe it’s the Earth sign – and I bruise easily, and I always assume I bumped something without realizing it. I don’t assume Imminent Death, so there’s a data point for you. Earth signs? I also don’t assume brain tumour from headaches. It’s nice to be this way, although I will say it will be a major shock I will be unprepared for if something DOES happen to me.
Your Covid scare made me think of something I have been pondering lately, and that is that if one of us gets Covid, pretty much we all are going to get Covid, because there is just no way to isolate in our house. It’s too small. We have two bathrooms, but one is on the main floor and one is in the basement, and all our bedrooms are close together. There’s just no way. My husband works in the basement, so we couldn’t put someone down there. I guess I’ve just accepted that if one of us goes, all of us go. Mind you, my son had a massive cold at the end of November, but now I wonder if it WAS Covid, because the symptoms were Omicron-like, but at the time, O wasn’t really a thing and people under 18 weren’t being tested for symptoms like runny nose and sore throat. Now, of course, it’s almost impossible to get a PCR test (although we have rapid tests from the school, but obviously they aren’t going to tell us anything that happened in November).
Your doctor sounds nice! Well, at least it was only your arm out of your sleeve, imagine if the doctor had walked in as you had no pants on or something! Eeek!
Oh ABSOLUTELY unexplained bruises are always leukemia to me. It’s like if a woman in a movie / TV show is shown throwing up out of nowhere, and we haven’t seen her getting drunk in the scene immediately prior, she is definitely pregnant. Bruises? Leukemia.
I cannot figure out the recommendations for quarantining/isolating/testing either. After several sessions of thinking it was my inability to understand, I have come to a new conclusion: NO ONE KNOWS, but they are TRYING TO DISGUISE THAT FACT.
I dislike all those “HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO TELL THE BIRTH TEAM” instructions, because they put so much burden on the pregnant person to buck the existing system, when we all know that patients bucking the system are seen as difficult and demanding and ridiculous. If skin-to-skin contact is so important, then the birth team (LED PRESUMABLY BY THE SAME OBs SHARING THIS ART/INFORMATION) should be the ones who know to do that, and take charge of setting things up so that that will automatically happen whenever possible. If the system is instead for the baby to be taken away (which is what happened with my babies, even though they were not taken to the NICU but just to a waiting pediatric team in the same room, and then to the nursery to be cleaned up further), then some of us are not going to be willing to say to a team of birth professionals “Um, excuse me, could you give me that baby back? I don’t know if you know this, but skin-to-skin contact is so important.”
Yes, the vomit = pregnancy thing. Thanks to books/TV/movies, I am also always on the lookout for sore arm (heart attack), forgetting things in another room (dementia), fatigue (cancer), and cough (consumption).
North is home from school today for the second day in a row with a sore throat and cough. We have some rapid tests we’ll have them take when they get up, but it’s unclear what we should do with a negative result. A cold can last weeks.
I have reached an age when I get nostalgic for my babies I have started to wonder when/if I’ll have grandchildren. But if my kids wait until their mid-thirties like I did, I’m in for a long wait.
Ha ha! I am a bad combo of clumsy and easily bruised. I always have bruises because I walk into doorways at least once a day. I try, I really try, to pay attention to where I’m going and be aware of this giant shell that is my body, but it just takes so much attention! So, I do NOT freak out when I get a bruise because I assume I have done it to myself.
Very occasionally I think about what would have happened if circumstances were different and we had a child. And then I think about how I can barely handle my chronically ill dog and I realize that I am not made up of the stuff that makes motherhood so important. So I think we all question our decision about to have/not to have/number of children sometimes, but I think we all know that we’ve done what’s best for us (supposing, of course, it’s a CHOICE, and not foisted upon you because of fertility issues, etc.).
The not knowing what is the right/smart/best thing to do these days is maddening. I want to follow the rules, but NO ONE KNOWS what they are. I hope you feel better soon.
I am a giant klutz, so when I see bruises I just think, well, what did I run into there? And why is it that when I do remember bonking into something, it never bruises? But the mystery bruises pop up all the time. (I’m also a Libra, if that says anything about it.)
Fabric gowns are the best! I’m seeing a new GYN so I don’t know what her office does. My PCP uses paper ones, and as I sit there, inadequately covered and sweating so that the paper starts sticking and tearing, it makes me tired. I have started bringing my giant bathrobe so at least I don’t have to worry about the flashing issue while we discuss my general health, a conversation I find it hard to concentrate on while my coverings are so inadequate. I am old enough that I just DGAF what they think about me coming in with the robe.
The robe is genius!
First, you are hilarious. The gown thing – I get stressed out EVERY time. And why do they give you a sheet before having you put your feet in stirrups and displaying everything to the room. I honestly don’t know how OB/GYN’s go home at the end of the day and eat dinner with their family and act like their lives are normal. To do that job I would have to live alone, as a hermit, and never make eye contact with anyone I saw in public. I also immediately assume I have COVID or gout or scurvy or some other random Google diagnosis. I cannot tell you home many times my kids spiked a fever and I Googled meningitis. Every. single. time. And don’t get me started on rashes.
***
COVID is so serious and I don’t share this to make light of it in any way, but when you talk about “justacold” I have to share this YouTube link.
I seriously almost wet myself watching it. You have to stick with it for a minute to really get into it, but my husband and I have been quoting “Sudden Spike” and “Leave Them Kids Alone” and “Fourth Dose, Fourth Dose” over and over.
Again. COVID is terrible and it’s not funny, but this did make me laugh. Like the hardest I’ve laughed in months. My brand of humour might not align and I can see this falling flat with some people but…yeah, I’ll stock up on Depends before I watch it again.
Thank you for sharing the video Elizabeth, totally hilarious!
Amazing video, thank you for sharing this! LOL
OMG Elisabeth, that video is amazing
Our family just watched it again at supper. I think I’m finally able to watch it without having tears come to my eyes…the first time my stomach was sore at the end from laughing SO hard.
My OBGYN office actually has a spa on the lower level. LOL. When I was pregnant they gave me a coupon to go but I never did because I didn’t really feel the need to be in the building for more than baby checks. Which were frequent enough. Lol
We’re one and done, too. I totally understand the 1% self-doubt that sometimes strikes ya. We’re still in the toddlerhood forest, though. SO I don’t miss that yet. LOL
Our health system is so completely different where I live. Rapid tests are free here, you can pick up boxes from pharmacies all over the place or you can order them online. It sounds weird hearing you talk about your annual gynnae exam and hearing about OBGYN doctor. I don’t think I have ever been to one we don’t have that system here either! Hope everything was ok after your appointment. I bruise pretty easily and for me it is just a bruise, I don’t tend to over think any mark/pain etc unless it is particularly persistent.
So glad that you seem to have found a doctor that you like. Paper gowns are the worst.
When Reg had covid and Curly woke up with a headache, I assumed she had it. I didn’t have a car the day Curly was sick, so I took her for an antigen test at 3:30 and it was negative. I called the pediatrician and they told me to bring her right over. We had to wait till Monday to get the results since it was a Friday. Before this, Coach had tested negative with the at home test when he had symptoms RIGHT AFTER Reg. Coach later tested positive. So, to me the antigen test is not reliable. Curly had symptoms for most of the day before getting it and it was still negative.
I don’t think you were dumb for being overly cautious, but I get how you would feel that way. There really is no way to know, until you know.
I do not think I have leukemia when I get a bruise. I am a Capricorn – does this mean something? I also do NOT think I am having an aneurism when I have a headache. I’ve had some issues with my gut and I do occasionally worry that the doctors have missed something there, because their answers seem somewhat general. I do worry when my kids are out driving and it is snowy and icy, so there’s that. I don’t think we can all escape worry all of the time.
I’m a waffler when it comes to be a hypochondriac regarding bruises. Either my mind immediately jumps to it’s leukemia or I just have thin skin. Usually, I’m of the “it’s just thin, old skin” mentality until one of my family members notice the wicked bruise and act alarmed and that’s when I jump to the other side. I’m a Cancer (which, incidentally, makes me feel like a marked woman to begin with).
I have no idea what we are supposed to be doing. In fact, it only recently dawned on me that home kits were available. And that I should probably source some – even though we pretty much stay home.
Basically, the internet – while wonderful – sucks when it comes to getting reliable information regarding our health.
But yes, I would have taken the same precautions as you. Better safe than sorry, I suppose. I’m VERY glad you did not have it.
That Covid horse race was hilarious.
So, my 14-year-old daughter had Covid a few weeks ago. I can relate to most of what you described in this post. We had trouble finding tests where we live. We just had one rapid test left, and it was the one that revealed our daughter had Covid. No one else in our house got it. But because my husband travels on a weekly basis and we have an older daughter in college, we believe at some point during the past two years we’ve been exposed. But wouldn’t it be nice to know that though? It’s just incredibly confusing because the directives change so often.
I, too, bruise like a peach. When I was in perimenopause and my anxiety was at an all-time-high, I was constantly worried about blood clots. I’m a lot of fun at parties.
Dear God, if they actually gave out practical, well- explained information about what to do if we suspect that we contracted Covid, the whole world would already have made a huge step into the right direction. It seems that the misinformation or confusing guidance is just of the many issues that we’re facing in this pandemic,. you know, besides the virus itself.
I am glad it was _justacold_
Ha ha… it’s just a bruise. I’ve had that same thought, but what I read is, if you find that you have a lot of bruises, you need to slow down and be more careful instead of barreling through life so fast that you’re constantly running into things.
Yes, the “Is it Covid?” thing is so old. I finally did have Covid over Christmas- based on my symptoms (HORRIBLE sore throat) I was pretty sure it was omicron, and sure enough, the lab result was positive. It was actually a relief to have a definite diagnosis. For what it’s worth, my rapid test that I did at home several days later also showed positive- so I think if done properly, they do work. Hope you’re feeling better now! Your justacold sounds justasuncomfortable as my omicron was.
It’s truly astounding how there is no consensus on what to do about Covid symptoms/quarantining/etc. I’ve never really trusted rapid tests, lol, so I always get a PCR test from CVS when I need to confirm I don’t have Covid. I just don’t understand why there is so much conflicting information! I just need one of those flowcharts that tell me the exact step I need to take. Get on it, CDC.
My funny gyn story is having the gynecologist breezily ask me to rate her 5 stars on Yelp after she had finished looking in my business. I’m over here, naked except for a flimsy sheet while she’s asking me to rate her?! Weirdest moment ever!
Bruises = leukemia, every time for me. Anxiety sisters!
I saw that Twitter [?] thread about what women would like to see happen in an Ob-Gyn’s office. It was spot on to what I’d demand, if’n I was in charge. The logistic of those visits are always seem slightly off to me.
I don’t know that a doctor has said “What questions do you have for me?” in any office visit lately. I figure they’re tired and pressed for time. I don’t take in personally, but it sure would be nice to be asked.
Sometimes I dont comment because there’s just SO MUCH to discuss. I really, really wish we could meet for a leisurely lunch that morphed into happy hour and then dinner. And dessert. Hope you are feeling better.
4 chuckles later (full of empathy, of course), I remember this cartoon I once saw of a guy, in hell, wearing one of those paper gowns that tie in the back, telling the guy next to him something like “I’m here because I invented these” 🙂
Even more so, I love the “making you comfortable with asking questions”! There’s an old movie with William Hurt called The Doctor, where the physician (William Hurt) has to undergo a medical procedure, and after experiencing life as a (VIP) patient, he’s resolved to make all his medical students go through a medical treatment as part of their education. Walk a mile in your patients shoes? If only…