I Took a Family Friend to A&E – and he went from unwell to scarcely conscious on the way.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one discussing the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday 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. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright 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.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice 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 Deteriorating Condition
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer all around, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board 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
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition 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”.
