I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a truly outsized figure. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he would be the one discussing the latest scandal to catch up with a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories 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. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Day Progressed
Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
When we finally reached the hospital, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the distinctive odor of hospital food and wind permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit all around, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on nightstands.
Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We saw a lighthearted program on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
By then it was quite late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get DVT. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
