I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a larger than life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one chatting about the most recent controversy to involve a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.
It was common for us to pass Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at Christmas spirit in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
When visiting hours were over, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We watched something daft 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 feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?
Recovery and Retrospection
While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted DVT. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, 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 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”.
