I Took a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and he went from unwell to barely responsive on the way.
This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to another brandy. At family parties, he is the person discussing the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.
We would often spend Christmas 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 scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, suitcase 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, making the best of it, but seeming progressively worse.
The Day Progressed
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 was unsuccessful.
Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, we resolved to drive him to the emergency room.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.
Cheerful nurses, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?
Healing and Reflection
While our friend did get better in time, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling 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”.
