I Took a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life figure. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Day Progressed
The morning rolled on but the anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety all around, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – had we missed Christmas?
Healing and Reflection
While our friend did get better in time, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but its annual retelling 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”.