Calendar appointment: November 8: Wednesday: 2:45 p.m.: Alta View Hospital Radiology: Mammogram. “I’m looking forward to my breast squish,” Mom texted her daughters, to whom she once likened a mammogram to lying on a concrete floor and having a semi park on her breast.  Pat was to pick her up at 2:00.  Though she was symptomless, I had given her my last KN95 for the trip.  She put it on right away.  “You don’t need to wear it in the house,” I explained—I was isolating.  “I like it,” she answered, never having worn a KN95, “I think it’s sexy!”  But on the morning of: a little cough and a small sniffle and a rasp in her voice and a bit more tired than usual.  With Dad and me positive for Covid, what else could it be?  “Mom, I think you probably have Covid.  You can’t go to the hospital for your mammogram if you have Covid—you’ll infect the whole place!  You need to test before you go, and if you test negative, you can go with your sexy mask.”  “I do not have Covid!  I feel just fine.  Just a little tired.”  “Well, you can’t go unless you test negative first.”  “I’m going!  I can’t cancel on the day of!  I’ll test when I get home!”  (You’ll test after you expose everyone?)  “Believe me, Mom, they don’t want you there if you’re sick—they’ll be glad you called to let them know.”  “I’m not sick, just tired.”  (“Sarah, I need your help.  Mom won’t test and won’t let me reschedule.  Can you give me some support?”)  “Mom, you are not going unless you test negative!  ”  Sarah did not enjoy the call, but she’s good at being the bad guy, so she says.  As they talked, I prepared the testing kit.  Our two-flanked approach got her tested: Covid positive.  I rescheduled the mammogram and called off Pat and informed a disappointed Mom, who deflated into her chair, wrapped in her orange fleece sweater and blue fleece throw.  Her doctor sent in a Paxlovid prescription to our regular Walgreen’s, and we waited for the “ready to pick up” text.  During each call I made, the automated system reported the prescription had been received, and I would receive a text when it was ready to pick up.  I did not receive the text, so we drove to the store a half-hour before closing.  The drive-through was card-boarded up—“We are short staffed”—so I had no choice but to mask up and go in.  “We’ve been out of Paxlovid for a week,” said the tech, and he sent us racing to a store 20 minutes away that had some.  This drive-through was open, and at 8:58 Mom got her medicine.  The fact that my prescription never made it into the system did not matter: Mom’s was the store’s last box.  I spent the next day in bed, except to warm chicken broth, when Mom announced, “I want you to help me do some things: I need to go to the post office to mail my election ballot, and I need to fill the gas tank, and I want you to drive me past the rehab center where your dad will be.”  Saying NO to my sweet 83-year-old mother is not easy, but I needed a boundary.  “I’m sorry, Mom, I’m not up for an outing today.”  “Well then I guess I’ll go by myself,” her disappointment dripped, but, in the end, she did not feel well enough either, with now a deeper cough and a stronger sniffle and deeper fatigue.  But she’s taking her Paxlovid, and resting, and eating, and word puzzling, and needlepointing, and news and Jeopardy and N.C.I.S. and Incredible Dr. Pol watching.  On the father front, Sarah reports that Cora, a 22-year veteran CNA from Mexico City, resembles Zsa Zsa Gabor as she coos her daily “My daaaling” greetings to Dad.  With his blood glucose elevated, she gently chides, “Oh, you are just too sweet, my daaaling.”