I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and he went from unwell to barely responsive during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized personality. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. At family parties, he would be the one chatting about the most recent controversy to involve a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.
Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Day Progressed
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to get him to the hospital.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind filled the air.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety all around, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Cheerful nurses, 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”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We viewed something silly on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, 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”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but its annual retelling has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
