I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and his condition shifted from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to involve a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
The morning rolled on but the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
Upon our arrival, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety all around, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board game.
The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I am not in a position to judge, but the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
