I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized figure. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. At family parties, he is the person gossiping about the newest uproar to involve a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club for forty years.
It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital 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 anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.
We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
Upon our arrival, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety in every direction, even with the pervasive depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.
Cheerful nurses, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us?
The Aftermath and the Story
Even though he ultimately healed, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but hearing it told each year certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
