Tag Archives: testing

Covid – gradually improving

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Well, I was wrong about one thing when I blogged yesterday – although I did eventually find myself awakening too early, my night was not crowded with bad dreams. I hate being ill and dreaming because there’s an inevitability about the horror and depression the fever dreams bring. Yes,  I want a good night’s sleep to recover, but I dread going to sleep because I will dream. Last night, this was not the case. Last night I didn’t sleep long enough to dream. I lost count of the number of times I woke but what with the coughing, the high temperatures, the blocked nose and the bladder, I didn’t actually dream. This is both good and bad. No dreams, but very little sleep.

Every time I woke I felt thirsty. Sometimes I drank, other times I didn’t, because drinking at night brings its own problems. During some of the wakeful periods, as I either added or subtracted bedding to adjust my temperature, I longed for a cup of tea or a hot lemon cold cure.

As I woke from yet another short sleep, Julia arrived, having got up before me, bearing two mugs – one of tea and one Lemsip. Obviously a wife who can read your thoughts is a mixed blessing, but in this case it was very welcome. I had my cold cure, dressed and had my tea. It wasn’t quite as quick as that, of course, because I was feeling sluggish. Since then, I am glad to report, I have been feeling gradually better.

We did our Covid tests tonight and were both still positive. This proves that the government guidelines are not foolproof, and that romance is not yet  dead.

I decided to go with bicycles as my theme for photographs.

Our Private Lockdown

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At the moment, my eyes feel a little hot and tired, I occasionally cough and I have a sniffle. Last night I had an upset stomach and the suspicion of a temperature. In my mind I have the symptoms of a very mild cold. The main problem is that I am feeling very tired, and that isn’t really a notable problem as I often feel tired.

Nothing I have is unusual, and, if anything, I am feeling better than I did a couple of days ago. IT could be a cold or it could be “being under the weather” as we used to say. Nothing registered with me to tell me I was ill. Julia was much the same. Her symptoms are a little worse than mine, though she has had no stomach problems. She has had headaches for several days though. I was duly sympathetic, but didn’t really think much about COVID until last night.

After a day where I made her do nothing (which isn’t easy), relax (ditto) and keep warm, she showed no improvement.

That was when it clicked. COVID! So she did a test. Positive. Then she did another one to check, and it occurred to me after our last COVID infection, that I’d better test too. Both positive. As I say, I don’t really feel ill, though I did feel very tired last night.

Watch out people – this new one creeps up on you!

I rang the shop last night and we arranged for me to stay away for five days. Julia rang her manager last night, who didn’t answer, so rang again this morning. It seems three clients, including one Julia has been in close contact with, have all reported being positive. Of course, having learning difficulties, they don’t always notice, and even when they do they have been known to turn up and tell staff they are positive. Sometimes the staff at residential homes actually send them when they are positive because they don’t want them hanging round during the day.

I’m so glad we are retiring next year.

Fortunately we have cake. Julia bought some earlier in the week, excusing herself with the words “You never know when you might need some.”

Clementine Drizzle cake with pistachio topping

 

Writing for a Future Reader

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It snowed, I wrote, it melted. I cooked two meals, Julia returned. We had bacon hotpot for tea, she said it was salty. The night grew frosty then it snowed again. I watched TV, fell asleep, woke up, made sandwiches and, in the early hours, decided it was time to blog. It will be one of those dull blogs written with a future reader in mind and full of dreary detail about lockdown.

There is something wrong with my routine. I am now in a rut – falling asleep in the evening so I am not sleepy at night. I then work into the early hours, have trouble waking, and feel tired during the day.

It is, as a result, difficult to say whether my lack of inspiration in the last week has been due to being tired, or being uninspired.

Julia has still not had the promised test kit from work and I am not working tomorrow because we don’t know whether she is asymptomatic or just healthy. It is an annoying situation, as I am trying to do the right thing but am stuck in limbo. If she’s clear I’m clear. If she’s positive I’m in isolation for 14 days. Or, if I fly in from abroad, I can self-quarantine for 10 days. Not quite sure why the two things are different.

I just looked at the rules. She has been in close contact with someone with Covid so should be in quarantine, but is being told by work that she should keep going in and test. I have not been in contact with anyone with Covid (in the absence of a test) and  don’t have to quarantine. But if I go to work I will come into close contact with someone who has a health condition and two people who have responsibilities caring for elderly relatives. I don’t want to be responsible for spreading it to the parents of other people after what happened to my father.

It’s an annoying situation to be in. However, it’s not appropriate to discuss my views on the way people are managing this, as I may be rude about people who can’t defend themselves.

Unfortunately, her contact came both before and after her vaccination, so it has had no time to work yet. Full protection takes two weeks.

I have been looking at private tests but there are several different tests available and several different prices. One was offered locally but they didn’t name a price. I can, however, have liposuction at the same place. There are at least two different tests and prices range from £65 to £135.

We can’t get NHS tests because we have no symptoms and, according to the website will be taking a test away from somebody who really needs it (we still have limited testing capacity, it seems).

Sorry, it’s a dull post, but in years to come I like to think it will be  an interesting historical document. I keep having visions of  a future PhD student basing a stellar thesis on my lockdown ramblings.. OK, maybe “interesting” was the wrong word – let’s try useful.

I’m off to bed now. I will review and publish this in the morning.

Blood Test

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I went for a blood test this morning, amalgamating two visits (one for methotrexate and one for warfarin) into one, and donating a total of three tubes.

My original plan was to rise at 6.30 and get down to City Hospital for just after 7.00. That was replaced by a second plan, rising at 7.30 and getting down to the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC)for 8.30.

Like my last trip, there was plenty of  parking and no queue.

Instead of tickets from the machine they are using laminated tickets you pick up from reception. Last time I mentioned that I wondered if they cleaned the tickets between uses. I noted this time, that they do. To be honest, today’s tester seemed much more on the ball than the last one.

They couldn’t get anything from the insides of my elbows, so they used something with a needle and flexible tube. This went into my forearm and the tube was screwed onto the end. It’s difficult to describe, but is probably a cannula. I always think of them as having massive, painful needles, but I have checked up and some of them look like the equipment from this morning.Butterfly IV Cannula 21G - Green | Kays MedicalI feel quite faint after looking at that. It wasn’t so bad this morning but I’ve had some really bad experiences with cannulas (or cannulae, if you want to be true to the original Latin).

After that I risked my life by shopping for bread and various other bits. It wasn’t essential, but it eases the pressure on the ingredients cupboard.

Then I went home.

After a late breakfast and a cup of tea I checked to see that I was still waterproof and started to consider my activities for the rest of the day.

This was, as you have probably guessed, fatal.

I had a phone call from the surgery. They had, in turn, had a phone call from the anti-coagulant service to tell them to tell me that my sample had not been acceptable. This usually means that the tube wasn’t full enough, though the filling should be automatic with modern equipment.

They printed me up a new request form, which I had to collect, and I then nipped into the nearby City Hospital for the test. There was no parking. I could have parked further away, but I’m lazy, so, after staring at the new testing facilities. I drove back to QMC.

It all went smoothly, we had a laugh about my second visit of the day and I got stabbed in the arm again.

If I was Richard Curtis this would be the inciting incident for a prize-winning romcom – Four Blood Tests and a Cannula or Blood Actually. These are just working titles, they still need some work.

I was so glad to get out that I can’t even rise to being irritated by the duplication of tests, or the demise of my cunning isolation plan.

I was slightly irritated by the presence of a Staff Testing facility at City Hospital. There were tents, signs, barriers and a Security Guard. There were no cars, no staff and no evidence that anything was happening. The testing regime will, I’m sure, come under scrutiny in the months to come.

As a final note – I saw a dead badger on the Ring Road – the first in over 30 years. You see dead foxes, because they live in town but the badger must have sneaked in as part of the wildlife resurgence. Unlike my projected romcom this is a story that doesn’t end well.

two specimens on gray background

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com