I Drove a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to barely responsive on the way.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized figure. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. During family gatherings, he’s the one gossiping about the latest scandal to involve a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club for forty years.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
As Time Passed
Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air filled the air.
The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.
Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so unique to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and subsequently contracted DVT. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, 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, 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”.
