The Day I Got Tested for COVID-19

It all started with debilitating body aches in the middle of the night. I figured I’d simply been on my feet too long — cooking and cleaning for days on end — since school shut down in March. But the next day, I felt fatigued and had lost my appetite, which, given how much I love food, is a warning sign. My doctor believed I had a virus and wouldn’t rule out COVID-19.

I thought I had followed the guidelines: I wore face masks, obsessively washed my hands, practiced social distancing and rubbed door handles with alcohol. But whatever sense of security I once felt behind my mask was shattered by the potential reality that I might have contracted the coronavirus.

What do you do if you think you have COVID-19? In my case, you get Shabbat dinner on the stove and run a load of laundry before dragging your tired body to get tested. That’s the thing about this pandemic. Life’s demands don’t stop to accommodate your affliction and those demands often include children and dirty laundry.

This experience has reminded me that I’m the consummate overachiever, and one who can’t ask for help. I can imagine future generations telling my story. “Back during the 2020 pandemic, Grandma Tabby managed to make a whole pot of beef shank stew before leaving the house and passing out in front of the testing center.”

That’s an exaggeration. I didn’t pass out in front of the Exer urgent care clinic on Westwood Boulevard. I just had to sit on the hot pavement because I was too weak to stand six feet from everyone else waiting to be tested. The line stretched halfway down the block.

The clinic was built on the former site of an Aaron Brothers picture framing store, which I’d visited for decades. I never imagined I’d one day return to the space to be tested for an infectious disease.

Waiting in line, I thought about my life and sobbed because I felt blessed that I might have COVID-19. In my mind, there are two ways you can be tested for this deadly virus: standing on your own two feet at a testing center or stretched out on a gurney. As far as I was concerned, the ability to be in line was worthy of gratitude. 

Since March, the worst-case scenario of this pandemic has hovered over me like a black cloud because I have asthma and, in the past, infections often have compromised my breathing and left me gasping for air. They’ve also resulted in pneumonia. But there I stood, about to be swabbed for a virus that attacks the lungs, and I was breathing normally. 

In a twisted, desperate way, I hoped I had the virus because then I might have a strain that didn’t affect my lungs.

My doctor had said COVID-19 causes different symptoms depending on the person. In a twisted, desperate way, I hoped I had the virus because then I might have a strain that didn’t affect my lungs. I’d spent four months living in fear and there was a part of me that just wished I’d caught the virus and had come out on the other side. In my delirium, I vowed to buy myself a cake if I tested positive without enduring a single cough. That’s how much I’ve feared my asthma. I never thought I’d feel so alive waiting to be tested for a deadly virus and I wanted to kiss the sky because my symptoms were manageable.

I thought about how I was someone’s daughter and sister; someone’s wife and friend. And someone’s mother — the kind of mother who feels the need to start Shabbat dinner before going to urgent care.

I haven’t received my results but I feel stronger and my symptoms are fewer. Admitting I might have the virus no doubt will deter some of my friends from going for a socially distanced walk with me. I can’t blame them.

When I returned from the clinic, my gratitude dissipated as I thought about everyone with whom I’d been in contact, mostly my husband and our young sons. For me and millions of others, there’s no end to the fear and anxiety this pandemic has caused.

Lying on our couch in the glow of the Shabbat candles, our 2-year-old jumped on my legs and I almost screamed in pain. But then I took several deep breaths and lifted him to me. He put his head on my shoulder and I buried my nose in the back of his warm neck. I inhaled his scent and realized what a gift it is to be able to hold him instead of being in a hospital bed attached to a ventilator. I wept and prayed for all those who are gasping for air, far from their loved ones. I inhaled another deep breath from the back of his neck and sang him “our” song — “Love Is Here to Stay,” by the Gershwin brothers.

As the days passed, I thought about buying myself that cake, but I couldn’t do it because it wouldn’t have been appropriate given the millions suffering physically, emotionally and financially from this pandemic. Still not knowing whether I had COVID-19, I settled for an Oreo cookie, took more pain killers and waited by my phone for the results.

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and activist.