Aney

The paper test strip steeping in blue liquid would soon reveal its secrets.

On the bathroom counter next to the test tube, my phone timer silently counted down from 10 minutes. I had swabbed my nose, swished the swab in the liquid and inserted the strip into the tube. Shortly, I would know if I had COVID-19.

A few days earlier, in a case of the worst timing ever, I had driven to Eugene to help my mom with a day surgery appointment the next day. Cruising along the freeway for five hours, I happily listened to an audio book and barely noticed a growing tickle in my lungs.

I arrived on my mom’s doorstep with a smile. Both of us had been fully vaccinated for months, so we hugged and got busy catching up. Had dinner. Shared a glass of wine. We spent much of that night and the next day together as I ferried her back and forth from surgery. My asthma, a chronic respiratory condition I’ve had since childhood, started to bother me more.

That night lying in bed at my Airbnb, other symptoms arrived: sore throat, chills, a wheezy cough and a stuffy nose — along with a growing feeling of dread. Surely this was a garden variety cold. Just because we’re in the middle of a deadly pandemic doesn’t mean one should assume the worst. Right?

The next day, I bailed on breakfast plans with mom and headed back to Pendleton. My husband, or Nurse Bill as I now call him, met me at the door wearing a mask. I set up the master bedroom for quarantine. A friend offered to give me a home COVID-19 test and Nurse Bill went to fetch it from her.

Now my phone alarm chirped, alerting us that the result was ready for viewing.

“I can’t look,” I told Bill.

He bent close to inspect the strip. The info sheet in the home kit explained that a blue stripe indicated a negative result. A blue stripe accompanied by a pink, however, meant positive. Bill gave it a long look.

“Pink and blue,” he finally said.

I was stunned.

“No! No, no, no, no.”

It was Wednesday, exactly a week before the start of the Pendleton Round-Up, my busiest week of the year as an (albeit now semi-retired) East Oregonian photographer and reporter. Every day of Round-Up, I typically shoot between 1,300 and 1,500 photos of rodeo action. This. Was. Not. Happening.

But it was.

My next thought was mom. Holy moly, I might have infected my octogenarian mom. That realization hit me with a supersized wave of guilt.

A PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test a few days later at St. Anthony Hospital confirmed the home test.

So where did I get COVID-19? Maybe on Sept. 4 when I photographed the outdoor Veterans Benefit and Music Festival at the Heritage Station Museum where few wore masks. I also had roamed the sidelines of several different football and soccer games with my camera and met with a couple of individuals separately at restaurants’ outdoor seating in the several days prior to getting sick. All seemed like well-ventilated, low-risk activities.

There are silver linings to getting sick. One is the knowledge that the two-dose vaccine I got last spring did its job in schooling my immune response. No longer naive, my system fought back like a special forces unit with advance intel. I am in a high-risk age group and I have an underlying condition. If not for those jabs, I might be among the one in 500 Americans killed by COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Of course, getting vaccinated didn’t guarantee I wouldn’t get the virus. I know that firsthand now. But recent data suggests vaccinated people spread the virus for a shorter time and their cases are generally less severe even against the hyper contagious delta variant. A CDC study recently reported that unvaccinated people were five times as likely to be infected from the virus, 10 times as likely to be hospitalized and 10 times more likely to die than fully vaccinated people.

Hunkering down in the back bedroom for more than a week brought tedium, but also a constant stream of texts, photos and emails from friends hoping to keep me entertained and encouraged. After 10 days in isolation, I breathed easy again and actually got to shoot a couple days of Round-Up.

As for my family, my mom tested negative twice. Nurse Bill, however, developed a fever and lost his sense of taste and smell. The case is mild.

Be safe out there.