Monty Python in the OR

I dedicate this post to my father.

So there I was, laying on the operating room table. I couldn't move. There wasn't much to look at except the ceiling and a clock on the wall.

Joseph and the baby had already gone into the recovery room. I was left in the operating room with my doctor (Dr. W.), her comrade (Dr. G.), a nurse, and the anesthesiologist (Dr. A.).

Since there wasn't much for me to do but lay there, my attention drifted towards the conversation that the doctors were having. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but really, there wasn't anything else that was grabbing my attention.

I heard Dr. G., an older gentleman, trying to explain the "Bring out your dead" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Dr. W., who had never seen the movie. He told her how the movie takes place in a medieval King Arthur era, where the plague is running rampant, killing many.

A man comes into town with a cart yelling, "Bring out your dead!" Clunk! The living drag the corpses onto the cart to be carried away and disposed of. One man is carrying another older, much frailer man to the cart. The man being carried is not dead, but the other man is insisting that he is, in fact, dead, or very nearly dead.

So Dr. G. gets to the part where the old man starts to protest that he's not dead, but he wasn't actually quoting anything, so, without thinking, in my best Monty Python voice, I blurted out, "I'm not dead yet! I'm getting better!"

Dr. G. pauses his narrative, laughs, and then says, "Wait. Who said that?" He asks the nurse. She told him she'd never seen the movie. He turns to Dr. A., who I could see. She shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head no.

Dr. W. asks, "Yuki, was that you that said that?"

"Yes."

The doctors start laughing. Dr. G. was surprised that I knew the movie, being as young as I am. I simply told him my dad is a huge Monty Python fan and we grew up watching them. A lot of the people I hung out with in high school are fans, too. Monty Python was quoted a lot. We watched Holy Grail in 10th grade history, for some reason.

Anyway, one of the doctors mentioned the irony that I said that quote while I was still open. They told me I had immediately become one of their most memorable patients. They were also impressed that, as nervous as I was about the surgery, I was still able to joke around. It certainly lightened the mood for me.

Thanks, Papa!