I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to scarcely conscious during the journey.
He has always been a man of a truly outsized figure. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to a further glass. During family gatherings, he is the person discussing the newest uproar to involve a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. He was treated at the hospital and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
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, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind filled the air.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been 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 headed home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
The Aftermath and the Story
While our friend did get better in time, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and subsequently contracted DVT. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
