I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to barely responsive on the way.
He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life character. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to catch up with a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club for forty years.
Frequently, we would share the holiday 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 fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Day Progressed
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. 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 don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
When we finally reached the hospital, his state had progressed from unwell to almost unconscious. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind was noticeable.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.
Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to cold bread sauce 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 having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
Healing and Reflection
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular 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 a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, 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”.
