Author: Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

They admitted Clarabelle to the hospital and Shandy waited for her results at the River Walk, since the pandemic would make it difficult to sit in the waiting room and maintain social distancing; they gave her a pager, and she left her number just in case it did not reach; knowing it could be a short time or long time, depending on the freeze test of the lump, if benign it would be a sew up and send home, but if malignant, a mastectomy would be the result; praying for the time to be short, Shandy watch the wildlife doing their morning dance for breakfast, offering some of her own treats from the feed box provided by the wildlife management.

Clarabelle had to have another mammogram to pinpoint the location of the lump; and perspiring from the lack of food, she struggled through it, praying for relief from the pressure of the mammogram machine, realizing that this was just part of the whole routine, she did her best to get through it, thinking of her late husband and imagining his comforting hands holding hers and she found mental peace.

As they wheeled Clarabelle to the surgical unit, she sighed and hoped for the best, wondering if she would go home that day and thinking about how good breakfast would taste, just thinking of anything but what would happen next, until the surgeon came in and talked to her; explaining the procedure, she told Clarabelle that she would keep her on the IV and she should not feel any pain, they would isolate the area so that would be where she was numb, they would then remove the lump and take it for a freeze test to see if it was benign depending on the results, they would either sew her up or they would anesthetize her and do a mastectomy; assuring her she would keep Shandy informed, Clarabelle tried to relax and wait while the procedure began and she did not feel a thing while they did their procedure.

“Hello, Shandy, your mother did just fine and will be in recovery just a short while, and you can take her home, all went well, the good news is that the lump was benign and the worse thing is that she will have to continue with annual mammograms, so it was a good day for her and for you.” Shandy breathed a sigh of relief and then she realized they referred her to be Clarabelle’s daughter; Smiling, she decided it was not such a hard title to accept.

When it was time to take Clarabelle home, Shandy called a taxi and smiling, she told Clarabelle about being called her daughter, to which Clarabelle smiled and responded, “Yes, I knew they wouldn’t have any issue if we were related, so I told them that, and, well, you are like the beautiful daughter I never had, and I am grateful to know you,” to which Shandy took Clarabelle’s hand and just like that Clarabelle knew her beloved Herbie was still around, looking after her, always ready in a zip.

There you have it! This is my response to the prompt word ZIP from Denise’s Six Sentence Story Blog Hop. You can go HERE to join in and read the other stories.