An Opportunity Created by a COVID test

I was just coming down with a normal cold, I had thought. The symptoms didn’t seem out of the ordinary, nothing I couldn’t handle- a sore throat, slight congestion in the nasal passageways, some dizziness, and the occasional cough. So what if it was harder for me to get through the day without needing a nap? I wasn’t the only one who needed extra sleep. The winter season had descended upon Israel in earnest, lashing anyone who dared to leave their homes with sharp winds and flooding rains. I thought that I was inured to Israel’s winters by my Chicago upbringing. But after a few days in which my symptoms didn’t improve, I decided it would be best to go to the doctor, just to be sure nothing was seriously wrong.

The doctor’s appointment was short. She’d hardly heard the list of symptoms I was suffering when she clicked her tongue and said, “You have symptoms of COVID.”

“But I didn’t have a fever, not once,” I protested. My husband had checked my temperature whenever I felt dizzy. “And I didn’t lose my sense of smell or taste…”

“That doesn’t have to happen for you to have COVID,” the doctor said, “And you have to get tested. Until you do, you must remain at home. Do not go anywhere until you know your results.”

COVID. The dreaded word. I’d done my absolute best to be careful, wearing masks everywhere I went, washing my hands constantly, and limiting my interactions with people. And yet- it was now a possibility. It could be real.

I had planned to go to the grocery store on the way home from what I thought would be a standard doctor’s appointment- “take these antibiotics and you’ll feel better”- but now I walked straight home, no detours. I felt like I was a giant walking germ. I was also dizzier than I had been before, and was grateful that the doctor’s office was a short walk away from home. I couldn’t tell whether I was suddenly sicker because I was afraid that I had COVID, or because my symptoms were actually worsening.

When I came home, my husband was waiting for me. Eylon clearly expected to hear something about antibiotics too, because when I told him I might have COVID, his face changed from mild curiosity to shock. He jumped into action.

“Okay, so you need to get tested. How does it work? Where do we go?”

Neither of us had ever needed to get tested for COVID, but we had heard that the process wasn’t difficult. From what I understood, you could show up to a testing place in your city and get tested on the spot. But there was one small catch: the rules are different for people experiencing symptoms. Since those people are more likely to infect others, they are required to go to drive-thru COVID testing stations, where they stay inside their cars and are handed the test through the window. What a drive-thru! Instead of burgers, you get a cotton swab shoved up your nose.

There was only one issue with this. Eylon and I don’t own a car.

We first tried turning to Eylon’s family, but they (rightly) didn’t feel comfortable taking us. If I did have Corona, that would endanger not only them, but the people they interacted with on a daily basis. Our next idea was to take a cab to the testing location, but we didn’t have the money to afford it- and even if we did, we didn’t feel comfortable knowing that I was potentially risking an innocent cab driver’s life, either.

We had heard that our health care providers sometimes allowed COVID tests at home, which we tried to ascertain through multiple phone calls. We were practically circus performers, the way we jumped through bureaucratic hoops. We stayed on the line each time for hours, only to be suddenly and abruptly hung up on every single time. After an entire day of this, I decided to reach out to my doctor through my healthcare provider’s email system. Within a few hours, she informed me that only those who had physical disabilities could be tested at home.

We had no idea what to do. I was legally required to get tested, but didn’t have the means to do so! I was a bird in a cage, hopeless and trapped. But Eylon wasn’t. He was the one who decided to go to the doctor’s office himself. “There has to be another way,” he said firmly.

While I admired Eylon’s conviction, I didn’t truly believe there was anything we could do. Rules are rules, after all. Nonetheless, I knew that doing something was better than doing nothing at all. Because I wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless it was to get tested, Eylon went to the doctor’s office by himself. While I waited, I began running through all the possible different scenarios of what might happen at the doctor’s office, but each scenario ended the same way: “Sorry, sir. She has to go to a drive-thru testing station if she has symptoms of COVID. No exceptions.”

I curled up on the couch and was drifting off when Eylon came back. I opened my eyes sleepily and noted in dim amazement that Eylon was grinning. My breath caught in my throat. Hardly daring to hope, I asked, “So what happened?”

“Well…” he began, slowly. It was clear he was drawing out the suspense on purpose.

I was suddenly much more awake. I pulled Eylon onto the couch next to me and said, “Tell. Me. Everything!”

“Alright, alright.” Eylon was smiling even bigger as he raised his hands in surrender. “So, first of all, I accidentally ended up in a pediatrician’s office…”

I laughed and shook my head. We had just moved in, and there were still huge cardboard boxes strewn around the living room. We were so new to the city that we could hardly find our way to an ATM.

“I stormed in there and told them the whole story without checking where I was first. After going on and on about how you were sick and how you needed to be tested, they finally looked at me and said, ‘As sorry as we feel for you, you’re in the wrong place.’” Eylon smirked while rolling his eyes at himself. “I walked out of there in a hurry! Turned out it was around the corner. After explaining our situation to the receptionist, she told me that your doctor wasn’t there that day.”

I groaned in frustration and punched the couch. “Now what are we going to do?”

“Wait, wait,” Eylon said, “I didn’t finish the story…”

“What more is there to tell? The doctor wasn’t there.”

“After looking at me for a moment, the receptionist said, ‘You know what? We don’t ordinarily administer the test, but I’ll speak to the nurse and see what we can do.’”

I sat back, stunned.

It’s not something we ordinarily do.

How extraordinary a statement.

It’s more comfortable to do the ordinary thing. To stay within our lane. It was difficult to fathom the fact that this receptionist was willing to go beyond the regulations in order to help a stranger.

Eylon continued his story. “Eventually, the receptionist came back and told me that the nurse had agreed to perform a COVID test for you there! Chaya, I haven’t even seen this nurse in person, and she’s willing to do this!”

This was even more unbelievable to me. I knew that the nurse was the one who would have to actually work the extra time in order to make this happen. I sat in amazed silence, processing the news. After a long moment, I gathered my wits and asked, “What will we have to do?”

“We have to get there at 7:00 in the morning tomorrow and wait until they have an opening,” Eylon said.

...

It was an hour after 7:00, and we were standing as far away from everyone else as possible. How ironic would it be if we were infected with Corona while waiting to get tested? I thought to myself. Then a grimmer thought struck me: What if we infect everyone else here? With this in mind, Eylon and I mostly waited outside. Eventually, the room cleared out, and we were the only patients left.

We knocked on the nurse’s door, as we had been instructed to do. As she called for me to come in, I felt my heart drop into my stomach. After all the work that we’d put into getting this test, I’d forgotten how scared I was to take it. I felt weak as I walked into the nurse’s office, and even weaker when I took in my surroundings. It was a huge room, and so white- the walls and ceilings looked like they had been sterilized.

“Sit down, habibti, my darling,” the nurse said. She was smiling gently and wearing a hijab. Her hijab made me more aware of my mitpachat, a headscarf that some religious Jewish women wear. The hijab and the mitpachat represent two very different worlds: one of a religious Muslim life, and one of a religious Jewish life. They stand out in a crowd and immediately differentiate each religion from each other, especially in Israel.

“It doesn’t hurt much,” the nurse said, obviously sensing my nerves. I was surprised when I realized that my heartbeat had slowed, my breathing easier. She had a calming presence, a sweetness in her voice, kindness in her deep brown eyes. But she also had a practiced and efficient air about her as she rolled up her sleeves and replaced her gloves. The wrinkle lines around her eyes and mouth were a suggestion of a life lived fully and deeply, sometimes painfully. Those wrinkle lines made me think about how human the two of us are, with the shared experience of pain, loss, heartache- and joy, hope, love.

Although it hurt when the cotton swab was shoved up my nose, so far up I was sure it must have grazed my brain, I was so lost in thought that it hardly mattered. Looking at this nurse, hearing her call me habibti, I found myself thinking that ultimately, we’re both wearing the same piece of cloth on our heads. In many ways, the hijab and the mitpachat are from the same world, representing the significance of our religious observance.

We are all human. This nurse’s small act of selflessness connected our lives for just one brief moment- and made me see that the headscarves we wear might come from the same world after all.

...

On our way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the events that had led me to get a COVID test when it seemed absolutely impossible. If not for the selfless acts of both the receptionist and the nurse, I wouldn’t have been tested at all. The receptionist had the courage to fit me into a full and busy schedule when she certainly didn’t have to, and the nurse was kind enough to follow through on that. Instead of going straight home at the end of a long work day, this nurse chose to do something out of the ordinary, to work extra time and give to someone who needed it. Neither the nurse nor the receptionist had ever met me before; I was a complete stranger to both of them. Nonetheless, they treated me with love.

The best part? The test came out negative.