💾 Archived View for stack.tilde.cafe › gemlog › 2022-06-04.covid-tests.gmi captured on 2024-05-26 at 14:57:06. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-09-08)
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I felt pretty well yesterday, and thought I'd take a test today to see if further isolation is necessary, as I am approaching day 5.
I went through two BinaxNow tests. One was defective, with the control strip dead in the middle, making it impossible to see the second line. Or more likely the control line was too high, masked by the top of the window, and what I thought was the control line was my very, very prominent Covid marker.
The second test was outrageously positive, but felt a bit weird because the control line appeared way after the positive line. Usually the control line comes up after a minute or so, and the positive result shows up during the last few minutes. Not this time: a very, very positive line was there almost immediately, and the control showed up later.
My viral load is likely through the roof, though I feel totally fine (except for a cough at night)... That's probably why everyone around me is getting sick — I can't imagine any of the jerks next-door screaming their drunken heads off at a backyard party (as I write this) giving a **it about staying sequestered long enough to stop shedding the virus.
My mom had a sudden blood pressure spike. Given my personal experience with Covid pre-vaccination (hypertensive crisis), and my current state, I suggested she take a Covid test immediately.
She said she was too tired to go through the steps in the right sequence. I thought it was odd, but my partner thought _I_ was crazy. "She couldn't possibly do the test, and neither could my parents!". She is totally right, there is no way anyone I know in their 80's could possibly go through the sequence of opening, swabbing, mixing, dripping, timing, and reading the barely visible (well, not in my case) lines. And if they did, they would certainly forget to wash their hands first!
So there it is. That is how you know you are old.