I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to scarcely conscious during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one gossiping about the latest scandal to involve a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club for forty years.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.
As Time Passed
Time passed, yet the stories were not coming as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, despite the underlying clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables.
Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
When visiting hours were over, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, 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 – had we missed Christmas?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I am not in a position to judge, 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”.
