Today's new adventure...

So Monday evening I started with a slightly scratchy throat. I assumed it was allergies; it's the right time of year for it and mold spores have been high. Soldiered through Tuesday with the sore throat and a little sneezing - I masked up in class as I always do and mostly isolated myself from other people.

Driving home, I thought, "I wonder if I should run by one of the chain pharmacies and buy a box of Binax tests and take one, just in case" but I kept telling myself, "no, you don't have a fever or a headache, no, this is either just allergies or a cold" instead of a breakthrough case.

(I may have been primed to worry about "breakthrough," one of my Twitter friends is dealing with a case and I've heard of several public figures who have had them)

But it kept nagging at me, my Chidi-brain going "the ETHICAL thing to do would be to be tested so you know you're not going to spread COVID to other people if you have it" And then I realized: oh no, I was slated to do the sermon on Sunday, what do I do if I have to isolate.

I slept badly, partly from congestion, partly from worrying. (I admit, around 8 last night, I thought again about the rapid test and thought "Walgreen's is still open" but it was dark out and I see badly in the dark and told myself "well, if you have a fever tomorrow morning, just take a sick day and arrange to do a curbside pickup of a box of tests then")

No fever this morning, but more congestion, and I was EXHAUSTED. Like, want to go back to bed exhausted, like, I couldn't face three lectures and a lab exhausted. So I decided: I never take sick days, this is what sick days are for, and also, you REALLY need to get tested so you know you're not going to spread a potentially-deadly disease to other people.

So I did all the e-mail roundabout, and posted notices on all my class websites (In one class I'm ahead of schedule, in another I'm on schedule; in the third I'm behind but oh well, they'll have to miss a day). E-mailed the department soliciting potential exam invigilators in case I wasn't able to come back to campus. Contacted Campus Wellness (you are supposed to report symptoms) and the campus nurse.

She e-mailed me back quite fast (this was at about 7:30) and told me "we can do the rapid testing for free on campus and you might find that way easier" and yes, I definitely would. So I drove up there about an hour later and she came out and swabbed my nose (the Binax type test is less-unpleasant than the "swab all the way up your nose" PCR type test, but it's still not fun). She said she'd call within a half hour and "you could either wait in the parking lot or go home" but since I'd already cancelled class I said I was just going home (And I do think I'm in no shape to teach today - I am tired and achy and my throat still hurts). 

Got the call a few minutes ago - negative test, most likely outcome is it's a cold. (Allergies seem less likely). It's been over a year and a half since I last had a cold (I think the last one was fall 2019) and I had forgotten how they felt. I'm cleared to return to campus tomorrow, which is good. I specifically asked the nurse (given it was a "rapid" test): "I am okay to return to campus?" and she said "yes," so. 

I suppose colds are more likely than breakthrough infections. You hear about the breakthroughs that happen, but that may be BECAUSE they are uncommon and also alarming to people.

I did receive a kind e-mail from one of my excellent students, wishing me well and hoping I didn't have COVID - and that she had had a similar scare earlier this fall (and yes, now I think of it: she is one of the few still masking in class). So I was able to e-mail her back and say "I will be back on Friday"

I will need to post notes on all my classes later saying I'll be back on campus tomorrow.

But yeah. In the before-times I wouldn't have thought twice about this and probably would have just pushed to go in and teach (if I had had a fever, I wouldn't have - have been told you're more likely to pass on a cold if you have a fever, no idea if that's true or not) but these days, we're all more worried about transmission. And I didn't want to sit in my office and hack and sneeze and have people worry about me being a plague carrier. 

At any rate - just taking a sick day now to get better, probably going to watch cartoons and knit. I have a can of "Bernie noodles in tomato sauce" (An Annie's product, kind of like tomato-noodle soup) that I can eat for lunch to help me feel better.  And I don't need to e-mail the acting church secretary and tell her to cancel church on Sunday; I can still do things as planned, I expect I'll be better by then.

(And I admit, I felt like - when I thought I might have a breakthrough case - "Look, this is what you get when you 'break the rules'" - I had gone to Denison this past weekend and while I masked when I was in the shops, I didn't mask while I was outside AND ALSO I did eat an "indoors" meal because there really was no other option - I got a table far away from other people and tried to eat quickly, but I had visions of "Look you immediately got punished for eating inside a restaurant before it was safe!" But I guess the only "punishment" here was a cold, which I could even have picked up from shaking hands with someone at church...a few people have gone back to that, knowing that it's not likely to spread COVID from surfaces or touch)