What’s it like to get a Covid-19 Test? Gather round and I’ll tell you! I’d like to say I took one for the team, but that doesn’t really make sense. Don’t get me wrong. I would totally take one for the team, but only if it actually made a difference.

I’m having wrist surgery this week so I had to get a covid-19 test prior to the surgery. It was easy enough, I drive-thru covid-19 test, and no one was in line.

I don’t know if it is the sensibilities of the Norwegians and Scandinavians who live in these parts, but there doesn’t seem to be a demand for the covid test like you see in other parts of the country. It might also be that as Scandahoovians we have a natural immunity to the virus.

I’m pretty sure I had the covid-19 already. Both the kid and I experienced a weird illness back in February. I woke up and felt like I’d been hit by a truck, but no fever, no cough, made a little sniffly. I was fine the next day and then experienced it again a couple of days later. More than anything, it was a weird cold that didn’t present itself like most colds do – 3 days coming down with it, 3 days feeling like complete crud, and 3 days feeling better.

Antibody tests should be available in these parts (at my doctor’s office) by the end of the month. I can go to the U of MN and get one now, but that seems like a hassle.

Anyway, back to the test this morning. I was not looking forward to this test. In fact, I’d psyched myself out to be pretty nervous about it. I’ve seen images of the test and it looked horrible as the q-tip is shoved into the back of your brain – that’s got to hurt. When my daughter had her emergency appendectomy this spring they had to test her and asked me to hold her down while they did it because “people reflexively try to swat to the q-tip away.

The kid had been pumped full of drugs and didn’t seem to mind the q-tip in the back of her brain.

I was given no drugs before my test.

I arrived and the nurse asked for my name and date of birth. She then asked if I had eaten or drank anything in the last half hour. I suspect she was concerned she might make me vomit? She gave me a vial of saline and told me to swish it around my mouth for 30 seconds, during the last 5 seconds I was to gargle the saline and them spit it back into a little tube.

She put a cap on the tube and put my name on it and for a very brief moment I thought that was the end of the test. I even mentioned it to the nurse who laughed and showed me the Q-Tip.

“I used to tell people that the swishing was not the test, but then they just worried about it so I stopped saying anything. The element of surprise keeps people on their toes and reduces the anxiety”

She then asked me to put my head back against the head rest and relax.

Ha!

She then shoved the Q-Tip about half way to my brain and held it there for thirty seconds before removing it.

It was not comfortable, but my eyes didn’t even water.

All-in-all, not so bad. Although I would prefer if I don’t have to have one again.

Have you had the Covid-19 test, what was yours like?