I Took a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to barely responsive on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life character. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to another brandy. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the outrageous philandering of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was planning to join family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit all around, despite the underlying clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
When visiting hours were over, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
It was already late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?
The Aftermath and the Story
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
