I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and his condition shifted from unwell to scarcely conscious on the way.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized character. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. At family parties, he would be the one chatting about the most recent controversy to involve a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.
We would often spend 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 supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
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 thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air was noticeable.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.
The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has gone down in family lore 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 hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
