I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – 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 not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he is the person gossiping about the most recent controversy to involve a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the outrageous philandering of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.
It was common for us to pass Christmas morning 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 took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
The morning rolled on but the stories were not coming like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.
We thought about calling an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
By the time we got there, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air was noticeable.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety in every direction, even with the pervasive depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.
Cheerful nurses, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
When visiting hours were over, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – had we missed Christmas?
Recovery and Retrospection
While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
