Many years ago there was an ad campaign for Camel cigarettes known by its tag line, “I’d walk a mile for a Camel”. Those ads frankly puzzled me since the smokers I knew never seemed to be more than a few feet from their cigarettes and when they did need more they’d drive, not walk, to get them. Over the last week I’ve walked roughly 70 miles, all of it in my apartment, and I wasn’t looking for any cigarettes or vape products.
The main reason is I’ve become one of “those people” that use a fitness tracker to monitor their activity. I find that without it I spend far too much time sitting in front of the computer but having it strapped to my wrist means I’m much more active. I usually log more than 10 miles a day — about twenty to twenty two thousands steps. So rain or shine I walk a lot, every day. However, living in SoCal there had to be another reason to do all that walking indoors.
And that other reason is last Wednesday I developed some of the symptoms of COVID-19 and was worried I had managed to contract the virus. Being in my late 50’s added to that worry. Having seasonal allergies means I often have a cough and the spring is one of the worst times of year for my allergies. Ever have a coughing fit in line at the grocery store? Yeah, nowadays I order online so I’m not in stores freaking people out. So I called for testing that afternoon but couldn’t schedule an appointment until this Monday. For the next few days I walked and worried. Every random ache, cough, or pang in my gut was followed by the anxiety of not knowing. I was taking my temperature and measuring my blood oxygen every 2-3 hours but that didn’t tell me I was OK all it told me is I wasn’t currently experiencing the worst of the disease.
And the pacing added up. Thousands of steps during the rest of the day Wednesday. 21,918 steps on Thursday. 20,601 on Friday. 20,566 on Saturday. 20,192 on Sunday. Finally Monday morning arrived and after a couple of miles to start the day I showered and headed to the medical center for the drive thru testing. They did both the swab for the active virus (which feels like they’re looking for brain matter, not stuff in your nose) and the blood draw for antibodies (yes, not very accurate but easy enough to do) then back to the apartment for more pacing and waiting. 20,549 for Monday. 21,182 for Tuesday. After 10,075 steps this morning I finally got the call: negative for both the virus and the antibodies.
So I’m back to where I started. Having gone nowhere for a week, worrying, pacing, but fortunately not facing a life threatening illness. Maybe I’ll take some time to this afternoon to celebrate by going for a walk outside. Just a couple of miles, to see the sun and the sky. To feel the wind on my face.. well, the part not covered by a mask. Because I’m going to keep social distancing and wearing my mask — this pandemic is far from over.
Finally, if this is how hard it is to get tested in California I can’t imagine what people are going thru in other parts of the country. There’s no way we can “open for business” when it takes several days to find out you’re not infected. Because those antibody tests are nearly useless having both fairly high false positives and even higher false negatives. The only reason I had it done was the data collected might help improve the tests.
