In Nova Scotia, Canada, where I live, COVID testing is free. Further, because we have so few cases compared to the rest of the world, we have been able to encourage asymptomatic testing. That’s testing for people without symptoms who may or may not have COVID, to see if any spread is potentially being done by people without symptoms. We also have “pop-up” testing labs that move around to make it easy for people to get tested. When I finally learned about the location of near me on the day it was there, with enough advanced warning to go get tested, I went for the “experience”… and now, I want another. 🙂

Who in their right mind would go to get COVID tested for the “experience”, you might ask? It’s a good question, but I’m often in my left mind thinking outside of the box, and that’s what I did here. I could have gone to “help the research”, since they need a lot of random sampling, and even regularly, to know since a negative test one day doesn’t mean a negative test the next day, if someone were incubating COVID, but I didn’t. I went to get one of these “rapid” tests that may produce false positives, where positive results need to be confirmed with a slightly more reliable tests, but not false negatives, so you can’t have COVID and walk away thinking you don’t. I went to get it just to be able to know what it was really like rather than just seeing people on TV with a long wire shoved supposedly really deep up their nostrils because one can’t see how far up it goes, obviously. You can find more a formal and scientific explanation of the test, including diagram, on sites like this UC Davis site. However, I’ll just give you the lay person version.

The test was a bit unpleasant, but just as described to me before it took place so I would know what to expect. They shove a long fuzzy tip stick, like a long Q-tip, up your nose deep into a cavity between the nose and mouth, and leave it there for about five seconds. During that time, it felt like you snorted water by accident, like in a pool, really deep up your one nostril. It felt a little uncomfortable, with a slight burning sensation, and almost brought me to tears because it’s a trigger mechanism rather than pain over which you might be shedding tears. I think a few more seconds and I would have shed tears from that mechanism, but escaped with my manhood in tact lol. And that was it!

After the test, I could definitely tell something had been jammed up my nose from a slightly sensitive feeling at probably the narrowest point of my nostril before the cavity, though I wouldn’t call it a soreness. Just maybe a little extra sensitivity. Four days later, I can barely still feel it, but I think I can still feel it because of a different reason. It’s because the passage has been widened and I can channel more air through their with each breath! That means I can also take in more oxygen with each breath, which is good for me and my performance, whether physical or mental! I feel like I’ve gotten an alertness and energy kick since then, with it translating to being more upbeat, even possibly, though there’s been a bunch of moderate changes in my life since then and I think it’s my love for change, pleasant or not, which has contributed to that. Still, this thought of being able to channel more air and oxygen into me to improve my performance from my one nostril a bit more open than the other, has prompted me to want to go get another rapid COVID test the next time I find out it’s near! I want to be able to do this through two nostrils, not one, and also not to feel like one side has an edge. Then, if this wears off, I’ll just keep this up until they stop this testing! LOL

Now, all this perception of extra air and oxygen and performance enhancement could be baloney, or, as they call it in medicine, placebo. However, you know something? I’ll go for that, too! After all, belief is such a huge component of mental training, psychology, motivation, grit, and so on, that it just can’t hurt. Besides, it’d only be “factual”, if true, by logical argument if I were, indeed, not taking in more air and oxygen, or that air and oxygen, wouldn’t be enough to help me. I’ve got feelings and intuition to help me believe, and that’s far easier to embrace than some rational thought I can’t even feel or picture from how I’m feeling. No evidence to me, on the thought, in other words. So on those grounds, I’m going to make an effort to scout out for when the next rapid testing COVID is happening near me to go and get both of my nostrils widened, and go more often if the effect wears off or if it helps keep the widened nostrils wider longer. LOL

Who says COVID is all bad and you can’t have fun with it?

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