May 7, 2020

Yesterday’s COVID-19 testing, highly unpleasant. They put what LOOKS like a very small swab up each nostril until it jams into your brain. The lab tech warned me and asked nicely not to pull his hand away from my face, as that apparently had happened.

Drawing blood for the blood tests was also pretty unpleasant as the guy who started was either new or over confident as he took a quick look before sticking me with a needle and then proceeded to move it around…I assume while looking for a vein he thought he’d seen originally. And then did the same again. First on the back of my hand, then my inside elbow area. Then poor Alice (who must have been the head nurse) had to come and do it as he felt bad and I was crying (cause…well…needles).

Then it was on to the EKG, which I’d never done before and was not at all painful, yay! There the nurse called Alice again, not because there was something wrong but to see if there was a better placement so she could get a prettier picture (less jagged line in one section). Alice made the printout slightly better and commented that the other nurse was a perfectionist, which is “good”. I think in her head she was being sarcastic rather than reassuring me.

They also wanted urine for a pregnancy test…I have a pretty large bladder so after a soda and 2 large cups of water and no inclination to pee…Alice to the rescue. The other nurse was starting to talk taking blood for the test instead, when Alice said the vial they needed had already gone to the lab with my original bloodwork done before the EKG, maybe they should just call the lab and make sure they could use that for the test. Sure enough, 3 minutes later, I was on my way out the door.

The results came back before I got home for all the bloodwork taken

Everything fell into the standard range except my white blood cell count, which was slightly elevated (came in at 11.2 vs a range of 4.0-11.0 for normal range). And (to nobody’s surprise) I’m not pregnant.