I Took a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. During family gatherings, he would be the one gossiping about the latest scandal to catch up with a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell.
As Time Passed
Time passed, yet the stories were not coming as they usually were. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, his state had progressed from unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.
It was already late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and subsequently contracted deep vein thrombosis. And, while that Christmas 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 involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
