I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to barely responsive on the way.
This individual has long been known as a larger than life character. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the latest scandal 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.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but seeming progressively worse.
The Day Progressed
The morning rolled on but the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, we resolved to drive him to the emergency room.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety in every direction, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way 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 regionally-themed property trading game.
By then it was quite late, and snowing, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling 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”.
