I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.
He has always been a man of a truly outsized character. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.
We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.
As Time Passed
Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
By the time we got there, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
When visiting hours were over, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend 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 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”.
