So I’m having some minimally evasive outpatient surgery on Friday. The protocol from the hospital where my surgery is at requires a COVID-19 test beforehand regardless of whether you’ve had a vaccine or not.
Then I’m supposed to quarantine at home until the surgery. Because of this, I get a forced vacation from work which isn’t all bad. I rarely take off that many days in a row because it will be one big mess when I get back.
My husband will still be coming and going from the house so the quarantine makes a whole lotta sense (not).
The administrative assistant at the doctor’s office told me to go get the test on Sunday morning so there was enough time to get the results back. She was under the assumption that they weren’t testing on Memorial Day.
I ask you – How INSANE is it to force me to get a COVID-19 test in one of the most dangerous rooms I will have to be in since this whole virus thing started?
A room where people who might have COVID-19 go in and out of all day!
Because I believe in fomite transmission [1] (the transmission of infectious diseases through objects), I wore gloves into the hospital. I’ve taken several fomite transmission classes having to do with Parvo and other diseases through my animal rescue conferences so I know how easily diseases can spread – regardless of what the CDC tells you.
I brought my own pen with me to sign any documents and I was under no circumstances going to sit in any of the “infected” chairs in the hospital – especially in the testing room. Even if they were sanitizing the chairs in the testing room, no one was doing that in the waiting area.
I went in the front lobby to their “pre-screening” area. They made me take off my own blue mask so that I could put on THEIR blue mask – which was the exact same blue mask.
So, yes, they made me breathe in and out without a mask in a common area where everyone has to stop at before they enter the rest of the hospital.
Common sense doesn’t exist at this hospital.
Then they had me take off my gloves to sanitize my hands.
Seriously.
The woman at the desk (she should be fired) told me she heard it was safer to sanitize my hands than to use gloves.
Uh… no it isn’t.
Then she backtracked and said it was because most people don’t know how to remove their gloves properly. I told her my husband showed me how to do it so I’m good.
I proceeded to the check-in desk and then the receptionist walked me to the registration area where she told me to be seated in a chair that sick people sit in all day.
No thank you.
The woman behind the glass (but still has a mask on) asked if my surgery was moved to Thursday. I said no, it’s still Friday.
Apparently, they have a four day protocol for testing, not five days – and yes they are open on Monday, Memorial Day.
I really can’t see why it matters it I get the test on Sunday morning or Monday morning if I’m quarantining…but hey, like I said, NO COMMON SENSE. Only rules.
So I left, went home and I put my cootie-infected shoes in the garage and my contaminated clothes in the hamper.
I felt like a NASA worker decontaminating myself.
Then it was rinse and repeat on Monday morning. A healthy person (me) has to make another trip to a place with unhealthy people are at so that I can be healthy during my surgery.
Makes perfect sense.
Now that I am in quarantine, I’m at the mercy of my husband if I desperately need bacon or chocolate cake or cheese popcorn.
I guess I’ll have to be really nice to him for a few days.
Another horrible consequence of the pandemic.