I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from unwell to scarcely conscious on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. At family parties, he’s the one gossiping about the latest scandal to catch up with a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, 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 Rapid Decline
By the time we got there, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Recovery and Retrospection
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, 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 certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
