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 personality. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. At family parties, he is the person discussing the most recent controversy to catch up with a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, trying to cope, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Day Progressed
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. 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.
The hour was already advanced, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?
Recovery and Retrospection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
