I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from unwell to scarcely conscious on the way.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. At family parties, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to befall a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club over the past 40 years.
It was common for us to pass 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 planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, we resolved to get him to the hospital.
We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit all around, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; 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 bustling about and using that lovely local expression so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board game.
It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Recovery and Retrospection
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
