I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized figure. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he would be the one chatting about the newest uproar to catch up with a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club for forty years.
Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
As Time Passed
The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of hospital food and wind filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently 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 returned home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas 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, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.