ICON9 Trial - Covid glitch - 11.3.2021

An eventful week, at least against the low bar of a Covid lockdown. Prepare for tedious detail.

We'd had a heads up through the street WhatsApp group, and when I got home from the hospital on 2 March, the confirmation lay on the door mat. The Barnet flyer announced that the South Africa Covid variant had been found in an East Finchley householder and that testing would be surging through the area. A dutiful citizen and stimulated by novelty, I booked tests for both of us bright and early the next day at the East Finchley station mobile testing unit - in the expectation that it would be done by a trained person. On the day, at the end of a queue, there was a chair before a small table and a mirror. Of course, it would be a self-test. 

For reasons Christopher found hard to understand but which still seem obvious to me, I opted to pass on doing mine in the open air, in a cold car park, in front of a gaggle of people. Instead I asked for a home test, so that I could search for my tonsils, gag, stuff a stick up my nose, sneeze, then wipe my streaming eyes in the comfort of home and a brightly-lit mirror.

Having done all this in the spirit of enabling the surge team to eliminate us from their enquiries, it was with some disbelief that I got a positive result text on 4 March. 😦😠😕

We went through the potential for my having been infected in reality and came up with not very much. The most likely pick-up venue seemed to be the hospital, but not from the visit the day before, and probably not from the one two weeks and a day before (no symptoms, although I had had the first vaccination back at the end of January).  And it seemed improbable although perhaps not impossible that it could have come from the shopping done for us four days before. The rest of the time I'd been shielding and only seeing people for short periods at a distance in the great outdoors.  Time passed as we went round and round these scenarios, assigning (low) probabilities, and coming up repeatedly with the possibility of a fase positive. The Lancet, December 2020, cites a possible false positive rate for PCR tests of 0.8-4%. With those figures, you'd expect a couple of false positives just in our road, if everyone got surge tested.

Instructions for us both to self-isolate followed snippetty snap after the result, and when I reported the situation, the Trial people said to pause the olaparib for two weeks as they don't know enough about olparib plus Covid. This was a bit of a hit - yes, it makes me feel ill, but without it I might be a lot iller, quicker, reassuring noises or not. Also, the side effects were receding; restarting in two weeks time could reset the side effects to point zero.

I fancied my chances on a repeat test, especially as Christopher vowed he'd tear his hair out if kept indoors 'and what are we going to do about the dog?' **.  But I didn't want to apply for a second test through gov.uk by pretending to a mild symptom in case they held that as evidence backing up the positive test. On 5 March I wrote to the enquiry email address on the Barnet coronavirus website instead, with pretty low expectations TBH. A whirlwind of activity followed - an email response I didn't see, then a phone call, then a car sent round with a home test kit, the driver waiting outside until I'd swabbed, boxed and registered online, then picking it up so it would be processed the next day. I think that all happened within an hour; it may have cost thousands of pounds as part of the outsourced contract, but it was impressive.

Result came on Sunday 7 March - negative. Aha! Vindication, I thought. That morning I'd already endured an 8am (bit mean) telephone call from Test and Trace to check we were self-isolating. I half-tried to be civil but wasn't really awake, especially at first. Moreover, on questioning, the caller had been insistent that even if my second test came back negative, the self-isolation would continue as a legal requirement following the first, positive result. So now, puffed up with affirmation, and a negative result firmly tucked in  my belt, I called 119 to contest the instruction. 119's champion was comfortably on top of her brief and had probably done this a hundred times before with much more vexatious characters. The same legal argument came out, but then a low blow referenced the precautionary principle. A firm admirer of said principle over a number of social and environmental agendas, I left the combat, albeit in bad grace, in acceptance of our remaining house arrest.

But it wasn't over yet. I hoped for a minor comeback victory in the olaparib restart contest. That had to wait for Monday, and hell's bells, they wanted a second negative test before deciding - best of three, two negatives to follow a positive, how to know which of the two tests were false? De dum de dum.

I didn't fancy my chances with the surge team so well this time, but it was worth a try. Fantastically, they came up with the goods again - same driver delivering home test and staying to pick up. Result arrived yesterday.

This morning, my Zoom Pilates session was interrupted by calls from the Trial practitioner - yes, the consultant says it would now be OK to restart but it has to be checked first with the doctors at Trial HQ - then, yes, go ahead, get back on the twelve-hour pill cycle straightaway and inch it back towards sensible times of day over the  next few days. It's now five hours since I took restart dose and I don't feel too bad - slightly out of sorts, but not actually nauseous. Fingers crossed.

I'm still curious. Presumably, as part of the surge testing, the first positive result would have gone on for SA variant genomic testing. I've heard nothing. I don't know if the extra test could determine whether it was a real or false positive. I don't think I'll take a chance by asking. Only two days left.

** "What did we do about the dog?", I hear you ask. She was not forgotten. Pack leader stepped up to the plate. (Deputy pack leader started well on Evening 1 then lost interest, but did tidy the back garden to allow access without fear of falling or thorn attack.) Dog got over her usual reluctance to poo in the garden. She got garden fun and games although one ball went missing temporarily and one has gone, probably for good, over the back fence - and there was mutiny over staying out in yesterday's wind and rain. She has had to work much harder for her food by tussling it out of Kongs, unstuffing it from toilet roll middles and searching it out from under obscuring covers. Steep learning curves swiftly accomplished. Clever dog! 

And much applause and thanks for Big Son and Loyal Friends of Lula who have driven, cycled or run for miles to take her out for several Proper Walks. 👏 Happy dog!

(With grateful acknowledgment to Patricia Finney's "I, Jack" and the belly laughs found there.)