I Drove a Family Friend to A&E – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive on the way.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the latest scandal to involve a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.
The Day Progressed
Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.
Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
When visiting hours were over, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
The hour was already advanced, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
