So that none of you worry unnecessarily, I’m going to start by skipping to the end: the COVID-19 test I took the other day was negative. Thank God. Now let’s go back to the beginning.
Before
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Like many people, I’ve been watching with dismay and alarm as COVID-19 cases here in the United States have been climbing again. I’ve been very concerned about the reports of testing shortages and hospitals reaching capacity, and have been grateful that, at least for now, my home state of Missouri hasn’t reached the terrifying levels of other areas. I was also glad that I have been, and continue to be, extremely careful. Even though we’re “open for business”, I haven’t been comfortable with increasing my risk of exposure, and have still been staying home except to occasionally see my family, a few friends, and a handful of people that have been here to deal with some home repairs that I couldn’t put off any longer.
The Call
Given my precautions, I was in no way prepared to learn that I had been exposed. To protect the privacy of others, I’m not going to get into the specifics of how that happened. I will say that it did not come from my family. At any rate, when I learned this week that I was at risk, I was blown away.
My first response was a little bit of yo-yoing between calm and total freakout. On the one hand, we wore masks and practiced social distancing, and I felt completely fine. On the other hand, I had been exposed to the coronavirus. What’s more, since that happened, I had seen my parents, my sister Audrey, and two of my nieces. After months of the entire family being exceptionally cautious, there was a chance that I had inadvertently made all of those efforts meaningless.
So I did what I usually do when I’m stressed, and called my mom. As usual, she was supportive, logical, and collected. She calmed me down, assured me that no one in the family would be angry at me, and volunteered to call Audrey and give her an update. After that, I was centered enough to deal with the immediate issue: getting tested.
Setting up the test
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I knew that they were doing testing at an urgent care just up the road, so I called them and asked how to set up an appointment. They told me to just come in and get on the list, and that I could expect a wait of one to two hours. When I arrived, they took my name and cell phone number and told me to wait in my car until they called. I also quickly received a text message with a link that allowed me to see, in real time, my place in line and how quickly the line was moving.
It was a hot day, and so I ran the air conditioner and drank a lot of water while I tried to concentrate on my book and answered a few work related emails. I couldn’t help contrasting my minor discomfort to the situation in other states, where people were spending the night in their cars while they waited for testing sites to open, waiting six hours in lines that stretched for miles, and sometimes being turned away when tests run out. Many of these people, unlike me, are symptomatic.
The Test
After about an hour, my phone rang and I was told to come inside. The rest of the process would occur in a clean, air-conditioned building with medical personnel who had time to answer my questions and were even relaxed enough to joke with me a little. It ended up being about another hour before I was actually swabbed, as there were periods of waiting between each step (paperwork, waiting for a room, more paperwork, vital signs, and then the actual test). Again, I was struck by how easy it was compared to what I’d be facing if I lived somewhere else. What’s more, I was lucky enough to be able to get a rapid test. The nurse practitioner explained to me that the availability of these tests vary day by day and location by location, but fortune smiled on me and I could have one, even though-and I can’t stress this enough-I had no actual symptoms. While I was grateful, it broke my heart to think that in other states, people who were sick and desperate were waiting days to find out their test results.
The test itself was, as has been reported, uncomfortable, but it was over quickly.
The Results
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After the swab, I was told that I’d have results in ten to twenty minutes. That short wait seemed to go on forever, and I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around the idea of waiting for days. If that had been the case, would my parents have gotten tested? Audrey, her husband, and my nieces? I pictured my entire family anxiously awaiting results, and also kept thinking (even though I tried not to) how I would manage if I tested positive and got sick.
I reassured myself with the fact that medical care is still easily available here in St. Louis, and, once again, thought about the contrast between my situation and what’s going on in hard-hit areas.
I can’t begin to describe my relief when I received my negative results. After that, there was a little bit of paperwork and I was on my way. Altogether, it took just about three hours, including drive time, for me to walk back into my house with total peace of mind.
Final Thoughts
Except that I really don’t have total peace of mind. The alarm I was already feeling about the overall situation in this country was brought into sharper focus by this experience. So even though I generally keep this blog away from anything specifically political, there are some things I feel like I have to say:
- I still can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that the pandemic, and public health, has become political in the first place.
- The testing, tracing, and supply chain issues in this country need to be addressed. I haven’t talked about this on the blog before (because again, I prefer to avoid politics here), but I frequently contact government representatives, on the local, state, and national level, when I have concerns. I have been doing this even more often during the pandemic, and encouraging others to do so as well. If you agree that something needs to change, please reach out to the people in power and share your concerns.
- On a related note, I’d like to encourage you to reach out to your elected officials and share your concerns about anything, whether you’re in the United States or elsewhere, whether you agree with me or not, and whether it’s about the pandemic or any other issue.
- Please wear a mask. Please social distance. Please protect yourself and others. Please make small sacrifices in the interest of public health.
Those are my thoughts. Please share yours in the comments. Stay safe.
Yesterday was Independence Day here in the United States. I celebrated independently by staying home and being independent of any risk of exposing myself to the coronavirus.
I think that being in isolation made a lot of us realize how much we value seeing and interacting with others. I’ve made strong efforts to stay connected to friends, family, and coworkers, and look forward to the time when I can see and spend time with them. However, I’ve also come to understand that I wasn’t fully taking advantage of these opportunities before. During lockdown, I was able to strengthen relationships that had been falling by the wayside, because I’ve been distracted by other things and haven’t put time and energy into staying in touch. I had gotten into the habit of declining a lot of social invitations because I was focused on work, and hadn’t really noticed that I was losing touch with some people. Lockdown gave me the time to reach out, but I know, upon reflection, that I can make the time moving forward, and I plan to do that.
I’ve mentioned many times that I love my job, and I generally don’t mind my 55-70 hour work weeks (yes, 55 hours really is how much time I work in a typical week, and there’s usually at least one week a month where I hit the 60-70 range). However, for a variety of reasons the fact that we’re all working from home has ended up cutting down on the work time. I’ve been working 40-45 hours pretty consistently these past few months, and I’ve discovered that as much as I like to work, I also like having more free time. Many of my coworkers have talked about appreciating the surprising shift we’ve experienced. On the other hand, I’ve talked to a lot of people whose work hours have increased because of working from home. It’s really dependent on the industry, the specific job, and the actions of leadership.
My father describes his teenage self as “a complete and total screw up”. My mother says that he’s being too hard on himself, but does agree that he was lacking direction and engaging in some risky behavior (which they still, to this day, describe only as “drinking and other things”). He recognized that he wasn’t happy with where he was or where he saw himself going, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. When he began saying that out loud, his stepmother (who Dad has always said was one of the most significant positive influences in his life) suggested that he consider enlisting in the military. He did, and, as he puts it, “the Army trained the screw up out of me”. After he was discharged, he returned home with an entirely different attitude, work ethic, and vision for his future. Happily, that vision included my mother, who had been a casual friend when he left, because after three years of exchanging letters while he was deployed, he was pretty sure that he wanted to marry her.
The man he became is incredibly supportive of others. He’s always ready to listen, to problem solve, to roll up his sleeves, or to give financial help. He helped us navigate the overwhelming task of applying for college admissions and scholarships, learning on the job because my sister Audrey was the first person on either side of my family to go to college. He matched us dollar for dollar when we were saving for our first cars. On three separate occasions, one of his siblings moved into our house when they needed help getting back on their feet. He still insists on cutting my grass, even though he’s in his seventies and I am perfectly capable of doing it myself. As far as Dad is concerned, the people you care about are part of your team, and teams work together.
The other night I heard a politician I strongly dislike say something I completely agreed with. My first thought was, “Ugh. I can’t believe I’m agreeing with this person.” My second thought was, “Clearly this person doesn’t mean that. They’re just saying it for political purposes.” Luckily, my third thought was, “What the heck is wrong with me?” Our knee jerk reaction to a disliked messenger is to immediately dislike, disregard, or disbelieve the message. In the same way, we tend to respond positively to a message shared by someone we like, admire, or respect.
People often speak in shorthand, catchphrases, and buzzwords. That isn’t inherently a bad thing, as it can quickly and easily convey a complex idea. However, as a listener it’s important to make sure that you understand exactly what is behind the slogan, soundbite, or jargon. For example, 
A big part of effective listening is how you approach it. Hearing is passive, but listening is active, and it starts with your attitude. The way you mentally frame what you’re doing makes a huge difference in how effective you’ll be. If all you’re looking for is something that will confirm your existing beliefs, give you something to be angry about, or give you something to mock, you aren’t going to be able to fully consider the message or the meaning. Set objectives for yourself, be mindful of those objectives, and hold yourself accountable. Here’s the attitude I try to maintain while listening:
Earlier this week, I had a two hour conversation with my friend Brad, who, as I explained in that previous post, is a very smart man who disagrees with me on almost everything. After discussing a wide range of topics, we began to talk about what made our conversations possible. Specifically, why have always been able to air contrasting opinions without offending each other or shouting each other down? I posited that some of it is because of our enduring friendship, and Brad responded by saying he doubted our friendship would have endured if we hadn’t figured out, a long time ago, how to navigate the conversations. We avoided the “chicken and egg” debate, and instead focused unpacking the unspoken rules and attitudes we bring to the table. To summarize:
In 
We live in a complex world full of complex situations, but too often our discourse completely ignores nuance. Moreover, we often try to categorize each other. The attitude of “If you think or support this you have to think or support this other thing” is illogical, dangerous, and disrespectful. This attitude pops up in a lot of situations, and has been especially pervasive during recent events. I’ve heard so many people argue that if you support the protesters or anything they stand for, you have to accept and embrace riots and looting, and if you support the police or worry about law and order, you have to accept and embrace abuse of power. However, forced polarization is not only untrue, but also unproductive. Applying this standard to others makes it difficult to have productive conversations, and applying it yourself makes it hard to have an open mind.
If you’re wondering whether I’m the right-leaning or left-leaning person in my conversations with Brad, I’m afraid that’s not a question I’m going to answer. When I started this blog, I decided that I wasn’t going to talk politics. Maybe that will change someday, but today is not that day. What I want to talk about today isn’t my opinions on political or social 
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Mom has also been a huge collector of photographs, and-perhaps even more importantly-a huge 
As I mentioned in last year’s post, Mom has always encouraged togetherness. Being unable to get together during the pandemic hasn’t slowed her down at all when it comes to making sure we stay connected. She speaks to every member of our family on a daily basis, and if we haven’t talked to each other recently, she gives an update. This actually isn’t a new thing-Mom has always been the hub of our family communication, but it’s become even more noticeable, and appreciated, right now. And she hasn’t stopped with just family. She asks about, and shares, what’s going on with everyone’s friends and coworkers. She even contacts them directly to see how they’re doing. When I recently received a text from a friend saying, “It was so great to hear from your mom”, it really drove home how amazing she is. Her example continues to inspire me to be better about communicating with and supporting the people in my life.
Amanda Cade 