I Took a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.
He has always been a man of a larger than life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to another brandy. During family gatherings, he is the person gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.
It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.
The Day Progressed
Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
When visiting hours were over, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We saw a lighthearted program 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 experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed DVT. 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”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but its annual retelling 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”.