The key to life

My COVID-19 test cost me two days I’ll never get back again. Coughing and spluttering in the motorcade at the local test centre, I was convinced that my turn had come. Within hours, I would lose my sense of taste and smell and have a temperature of at least 100. Then, I would wait for a few days, either recovering or – oh, let’s not go there. But after a mere 50 hours, the news came that I was clear. Thank the lord.

I can’t pretend that waiting for the result didn’t occupy my mind. I was surrounded by ‘what if’ thoughts, something that’s not necessarily a good thing for a clinical depressive. Because of the latter, I kept wondering if this was my time. I wasn’t overwhelmed by anxiety, rather more a sense of inevitability. Que sera sera. Turns out I lived to stress another day.

Now I know I am not infected by a deadly virus, the painful sore throat that has arrived today is merely a painful sore throat. I can keep calm and carry on in the safe knowledge that the worst illness I can infect on an unwitting third party is a sore throat.

My guess is that this will not be my last brush with COVID-19. My asthma means that I will send much of the winter coughing and having a shortness of breath. I will be confronted frequently by having to make a decision: to have a test or not to have a test? If I make my way to the centre because I cough, I’ll be there every day. But then, do I want to risk killing people? In my personal and professional life, I frequently come across those, like me, who are not in the first flush of youth and have the dreaded ‘underlying medical condition’. It’s a case of someone with no real medical knowledge making lie and death decisions. For me, insert you. One way or the other, you and I hold the key to life for everyone we meet. No responsibility there, then.

Now, I have a cough and a sore throat. Whatever next? At least for today, I’m not infected by COVID-19. Who knows if I’ll still be clear by lunchtime?