It all started out pretty innocently. One night, our family was at the kitchen table playing a card game called Back-Alley Bridge, a distant cousin of Hearts. The game, which is centered on trick-taking, is effective on two fronts. One, it takes two hours to play, and two, it can be frustrating as hell. So given the current shut-in situation, we’ve played about 25 games so far in the past two months. Since we’ve already have a stockpile of frustration that would rival a toilet paper hoard, what’s the harm in a little more, right?
During one hand, I managed to trump for a trick early during a hand of 13—meaning that despite getting dealt 13 cards, I did not have one of the four suits and was able to trump my daughter’s ace of spades. She reacted as expected, which was just shy of back-handing me across the face, and it brought about a lot of laughter. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard. Chuckles have been few and far between in our house, with three graduation ceremonies and a senior high school softball season lost to COVID-19.
While laughing, I couldn’t help but notice the depth of coughing attack it triggered. My chest felt disturbingly heavy, but initially, I wrote it off as seasonal allergies. Here in New Jersey, pollen can accumulate on a car like a light dusting of snow. But as the days passed, a few more belly laughs produced the same result—a cough that portended something more serious.
Given that my wife is employed by the local school district, and despite its closure, she still comes into contact with teachers, admin, etc. I decided to err on the side of absolute caution and make an appointment to take a COVID-19 test. Regardless, I was confident that what I was experiencing wasn’t the new “C” word. And given that my state had ramped up its efforts to increase testing—and I reside in its least-populated county, where only a handful are tested twice per week—it seemed the right thing to do.
A Trip to the Fairgrounds
The experience, quite frankly, seemed to be lifted from an apocalyptic movie, or an early episode of “The Walking Dead.” I drove to the fairgrounds about 25 minutes from my house, and found a pair of state police vehicles manning the entrance, lights flashing. As I pulled in, an officer motioned me toward a dirt path that led to a series of shelter houses (picnic gazebos on steroids). A makeshift stop sign and folding table served as the check-in point. A volunteer dressed in full PPE approached the car and shouted for me to keep my window closed. She then instructed me to place my driver’s license against the front windshield. I was then waved on to the drive-through shelter house.
I drove to the first table, where another volunteer recited the “windows up” edict. She then pressed an instructions sheet against my driver’s side window: Place car in park. Turn engine off. When instructed, roll down window. Position body as close to door as possible. Tilt head. Close eyes. Do not move.
Having watched people taking tests on the nightly news, I was confident it would be an in-and-out process that would be over in a minute. Once I rolled down the window, the volunteer stuffed a “what’s next” pamphlet in my hand, along with a tissue in the event of a nose bleed. I leaned toward the window, tilted my head and closed my eyes.
As someone who has donated more than seven gallons of blood, I consider myself fairly unflappable. But the nasal swab was as invasive and unpleasant an experience as I’ve had in recent memory. I’m certain the procedure took a matter of seconds for each nostril, but it felt like an eternity. The tissue would definitely be needed…to wipe away the tears that quickly accumulated. Guess I earned my snowflake wings.
Unbeknownst to me, one of the volunteers (all of which are county high school nurses) was waving to me as I departed. It was an old high school friend who was in my graduating class. We spoke by phone later, and she alerted me to the fact that the county was using the newer, less invasive nasal swabs. Are you kidding me? Had the probe been any deeper, I would’ve required 15 minutes of cuddling with an emotional support animal.
Isolation
The good folks at the county health department neglected to phone me with the results, as promised. I called them the other day and received good news. No need to isolate deeper into my already-quarantined home. Sadly, the Garden State is still among the nation’s leaders for new positive results, admissions and deaths. And I realize what I went through isn’t one-tenth of one percent on the horrific experiences scale compared to what others have endured: Hospitalizations, intubations, isolation from your loved ones…fear.
Last week, a childhood friend recounted on social media how he had to tell his elderly mother, through FaceTime, that her oldest son had succumbed to the disease. His is one story out of nearly 100,000 fatalities. More than 1.7 million Americans have tested positive, turning their lives upside down while amplifying fear to a degree not felt since the Spanish Flu Outbreak of 1918.
I love statistics, but numbers tend to dehumanize the pandemic. The stories of courage and self-sacrifice by first responders and the men and women of the health care battalions, waging war against the invisible enemy, paints a broader picture. Then there are the survivors. A guy I played Strat-O-Matic baseball against for years came back from the brink to be able to share his account in a video released by a health care system in northern New Jersey. As he tried to find the words to address, “For anyone who thinks this isn’t real,” his eyes filled and voice trembled. Words weren’t necessary. He’d just been given his life back, and his appreciation for the medical team was immeasurable.
The hope is that as we take stock in what we’ve lost, from the smallest sacrifice to the ultimate one, we can emerge rich in spirit, if a bit cash-poor; more patient, though we’ve grown tired of waiting; and more empathetic, even as we wonder what will become of ourselves. Ultimately, perhaps our ability to sacrifice will yield an even greater return for all.
In the end, our better selves are always waiting to be discovered. And if it doesn’t involve a longer Q-tip, I’m all for it.
