Tag: testing

DNA Testing Kits & Consent

For Christmas in 2020 I was given an Ancestry DNA kit from my mother. It was a very thoughtful gift from a parent who has always given me very thoughtful gifts my entire life. However, almost all of my mother’s digital life – from her home automation, to the last 3 laptops she’s owned, to her on-site NAS, to most things she owns that have a plug & screen are things I’ve given to her. I’m her tech-wizz son so it’s pretty suiting and I enjoy it. Unsurprisingly she’s not exactly “up-and-up” on technology – however she’s pretty damn keen on a lot of other things. She’s a smart cookie – just not with tech.

It’s for that reason I thanked her for the really thoughtful gift but explained that I wouldn’t be willing to use it for privacy reasons. She seemed perplexed as there’s a lot of mystery surrounding my father’s side of the family (no, he didn’t run off in the middle of the night to get a pack of smokes and never return). There’s basically nothing known about anyone prior to my grandfather, and there’s also another much more relevant question that pertains to me a lot closer which I’ll (very likely) never know the answer to. She was giving me the gift of curing curiosity. Am I curious – absolutely! But, I’m not willing to pay the price of admission.

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I Got COVID, But Didn’t Even Know It.

Before I get into this, I want to make it perfectly clear. I am 100% pro-vaccine, pro-mask, pro-lockdown, and this post is in no way trying to downplay the effects or severity of getting COVID. It’s no joke, and if you need any sort of proof of this, feel free to head over to the COVID-19 Darwin Awards at https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/

Of as writing this – Jan 12th 2022 – It’s been 2 years since this virus landed in Canada, depending who you ask. Many think COVID started in March 2020, but the first COVID case in Canada on record is Jan 25 2020. My mother caught something the first week of Jan 2020 that basically took her out for the better part of 6 weeks. Nobody could tell her what she’d caught and for the first time ever I genuinely feared for her health with how she was describing her symptoms and the very slow rate of recovery. She wasn’t alone – there were a lot of cases of this mysterious long lasting flu going around during that time – was it COVID, we’ll never know.

So, despite spending the past 2 years being responsible, social distancing, keeping my bubble very small (and at times not seeing people for weeks on end), getting my vaccines as soon as they were available to me, and being diligent with my mask, I caught COVID. I can’t know for sure, but it was just before Christmas. I suspect the Omicron strain.

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