I Took a Family Friend to A&E – and he went from peaky to barely responsive on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person chatting about the newest uproar to involve a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
As Time Passed
Time passed, yet 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 was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
Upon our arrival, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer all around, despite the underlying clinical and somber atmosphere; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we made our way home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and later developed DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
