I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life figure. Clever and unemotional – and not one to say no to another brandy. During family gatherings, he is the person gossiping about the latest scandal to catch up with a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind permeated the space.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
When visiting hours were over, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?
Recovery and Retrospection
While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.