I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. During family gatherings, he would be the one discussing the latest scandal to befall a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the stories were not coming as they usually were. 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, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided 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 Worrying Turn
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere permeated the space.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety in every direction, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
When visiting hours were over, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed 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”.
How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
