I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to barely responsive on the way.
He has always been a man of a larger than life character. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one chatting about the newest uproar to catch up with a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.
We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, 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.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
By the time we got there, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer all around, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
It was already late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
Recovery and Retrospection
While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get DVT. 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”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition 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”.
