I Took a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to scarcely conscious on the way.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life personality. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the outrageous philandering of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, 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. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell.
The Day Progressed
Time passed, yet the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, we resolved to get him to the hospital.
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
By the time we got there, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind was noticeable.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.
Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that lovely local expression so particular to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.
It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I couldn’t possibly comment, but hearing it told each year 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”.
