I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and his condition shifted from peaky to barely responsive during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life personality. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to another brandy. At family parties, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to involve a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.
It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He was convinced he was OK but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety all around, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.
Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Recovery and Retrospection
Although our friend eventually recovered, 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 gone down in family lore 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 the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
