ALL THE PANIC ATTACKS

It's been a very long time since I've had more than one panic attack in a week. Let alone in a day. But today was just like of full of them. The whole drive from Columbus to Chillicothe was one giant surreal panic attack.  But my p/ox stayed solid for most of it.

I had a moment where it dropped crazylow in line to get swabbed, but then I had a coughing fit and it was fine? It was really my own fault as I didn't stop to get food on the way to the line, so I couldn't take prednisone or Mucinex. Gonna make sure that doesn't happen again.

The trek to get swabbed sums up my last 24 hours. My workwife sent me a link that the Cleveland Clinic had opened a drive-up swab system, so I signed on to their telemedicine and got orders for one. Drove up, the highlight of which was driving through snow, a rarity this winter, especially the hyperspace feeling. 

Don't act too cool. You know you've thought it before, too.

Crashed in a hotel (which I Lysol'd the hell out of after me, although I worry about the duvet). Checked in to telemedicine again because the doc never posted the stuff she said she would. I was good to go, so I went to get in line... a process that took a half an hour in and of itself AFTER I arrived at the hospital.  Google couldn't get me through the one way streets as "start of COVID-19 Testing Line" is not an actual location, but I got there.

Saying "it took me 3.5 hours" and "they were astonishingly efficient" sound at odds with one another, but it's not. There was just a LOT of people. The testing was in the parking garage, and they had six stands set up for swabbing. 

Prior to going in the garage (where I'd estimate they kept 18 cars at all times), you were held in a parking lot that held over 140 cars at all times. And before that, you were in a line that stretched over two blocks. So. Many. People.

Inside, it looked like the scenes in E.T. that gave me nightmares. There were tents filled with people in scrubs with disposable scrub covers on top of that, wearing gloves and face masks with hazmat masks over that. 

But of course it was not at all nightmarish, and everyone was really nice. The police who were directing traffic took very few breaks, and I imagine that was also the case with those inside. I'm sure the people actually running the tests are taking fewer, as they still are going to be analyzed while the lines are closed.