The Discovery of Natalia Myers

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THE BRIGHT LIGHTS of the OR room almost blind me. I'm absolutely scared to death, my body visibly shaking as I've got tears running down my cheeks. The nurses around me are doing a million things and none of them are paying attention to me.

There are a million machines in the room, some of them making noises, some of them quiet. I involuntarily start shaking when one of the nurses starts pulling out sterile sheets from one of the drawers. In a few minutes, they are going to be covering my naked body as I'm sliced apart.

I wipe away some of my tears with the back of my hand.

"There's no need to cry, sweetie," one of them says suddenly. "Everything will be fine. It's just a few small cuts. You'll be good as new tomorrow."

Yeah, right. Do you have an unknown mass in your stomach? Do you have a few small cuts on your stomach? I don't like the thought of having scars on my stomach. With the countless body issues, the last thing I need is something that's going to make me feel even worse about my body.

I don't bother replying to her. It only just makes more tears flow out of my eyes. I can't even control them anymore. Tears are just streaming down my face like a waterfall.

I freeze when I see a doctor entering the room and coming towards me. "Hi, you're Natalia, right?" He asks me and I can almost hear the warm smile on his face. If only he wasn't about to cut me open like I'm a slice of meat.

"I'm your anaesthesiologist, can you answer a few of my questions?"

I nod my head, trying to control myself.

"Are you on any medication?" I tell him all the meds I'm taking, which isn't a lot, but it's still some and it's better if they know about them.

"Are you allergic to any medication?" I shake my head.

"Can you please tell me your height and weight?" I tell him the numbers. No idea if they're even correct, I haven't weighed myself in a long time. Mainly because when I do keep track of my weight, it starts to affect my mental health in a bad way. I almost become addicted to making my weight as low as possible, even though my body might look fine.

"Can you open your mouth for me for a second, please?" He asks and leans a bit closer to me.

I shake my head and keep my mouth tightly shut. "I don't want to," I manage to mutter in-between tears. "I don't want to." I repeat again as the tears start flowing at an alarming rate again.

Am I really having a complete mental breakdown in front of all of these doctors?

I guess I am.

"It's okay," he assures me. "Hey, look, do you want a pink or a yellow mask?" He holds up two different masks and I know exactly what he's doing. Trying to calm me down but it's not really working.

"Yellow," I mumble quietly.

"Okay," he says in a cheerful voice. "Yellow it is! Can you now open your mouth for me?"

I shake my head once more.

"Push 10 of fentanyl and 50 of lidocaine," I hear him tell one of the nurses and I panic. Oh hell no, I know exactly what they're trying to do. I squirm as I feel a cold liquid enter my vein.

"Please open your mouth for a second." the anesthesiologist tries again. This time I comply and open my mouth just a tiny bit. "Good girl." he tells me and grabs something from a drawer behind me.

He stands up, a familiar yellow mask in his hands. "Breathe in for me, okay?" He says as he places the mask on top of my nose and mouth.

I slowly start taking deep breaths, the only sounds in the OR room being my breathing and the occasional beep from the monitor.