I am sick. Oliver, our youngest, tested positive for rhinovirus last Sunday, and I was the lucky recipient of his germs in the household. Nobody else was as fortunate.
And I don’t know what it is about colds, but this is not the first time that I have completely lost my voice in the last year, even, when I was sick.
And because I read that the new COVID variant, ‘Cicada,’ is spreading, after a day of feeling awful yesterday, I broke out one of the COVID tests we keep on hand. Because yes, we still occasionally test when one of us is sick.
And as I stood there waiting for the test to develop, I second-guessed myself. Had I used enough of the test liquid before I inserted the swab? Had I done the twirly thing in my nose enough? I even found myself, once I was sure the time was passed enough, pushing some more of the liquid up from the bottom of the test.
And with that, I was re-living the massively anxious pregnancy test years all over again, when I’d wonder if I’d used enough urine to make the test work right.
So, I went to Facebook and posted this:
“My potential childbearing years (only counting from marriage on) were 2005 to 2014. But only having a tubal in 2014 didn’t stop me from being paranoid clear through 2024 or so.
And because the majority of those years were before digital pregnancy tests were not cost prohibitive….
There is a very specific type of anxiety that arises whenever I have to do a COVID test.
And I know very well to not even bother going to get Jared to ask him if he sees what I see, because my eyes and brain are VERY well trained to see a second line that is not there.
Because I think I see one.
I’ve held my phone flashlight up to it to try to see if that makes it appear.
And it takes all my restraint not to take the test apart to see if I can see a line that way.
Whoever came up with the mechanism for COVID tests was NOT sensitive to a couple of generations’ worth of us who did this countless times, trying to will a second line to appear.
Just saying.
And 2026 me can be mildly amused but early 2006 me would have been severely distraught that this is a way we have to routinely test for sickness.”
I’ve spent a good portion of this week monitoring my analytics: a fruitless exercise, much like taking pregnancy tests apart. But I went to look 24 hours after the post, and apparently I’ve struck a chord with over 12,000 other women who’ve probably taken tests apart or begged their husbands to see a line that isn’t really there, too.
I’m not used to writing things that people listen to. Or maybe I’m not used to using my voice in ways that are both constructive and vulnerable. I frequently write vulnerable things, but I am equally likely to yell in writing about the injustices than to find something to laugh at. And, now that the years are past, it is easier to see the humor in the very real anxiety I still feel about pregnancy and COVID tests.
While I’m not really thinking I have COVID, I still wish I could will a second line to appear. I suppose that anxious urge is literally never going away, even though I am almost a year post-hysterectomy.
And after 48 hours squeaking as I talk, I am ready for my voice to come back.
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