I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to barely responsive during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized figure. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one discussing the newest uproar to involve a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
It was common for us to pass Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one 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 told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.
As Time Passed
The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, 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
By the time we got there, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at Christmas spirit all around, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. 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.
By then it was quite late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?
The Aftermath and the Story
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition 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”.
