I Drove a Family Friend to A&E – and he went from peaky to barely responsive during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. At family parties, he would be the one chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.
Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. 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, his luggage in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and advised against air travel. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Morning Rolled On
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. 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 thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
Upon our arrival, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere permeated the space.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.
By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
