I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive during the journey.
He has always been a man of a larger than life character. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he would be the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.
Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.
The Day Progressed
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Thus, prior to me managing to don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
By the time we got there, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so unique to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
After our time at the hospital concluded, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.
By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
Recovery and Retrospection
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 isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
