I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to A&E – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a truly outsized personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he’s the one discussing the latest scandal to involve a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.
Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself 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 like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.
Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
By the time we got there, his state had progressed from 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.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?
Healing and Reflection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and subsequently contracted deep vein thrombosis. And, while that Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
