I Took 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 character. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he is the person discussing the newest uproar to befall a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.
It was common for us to pass Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one 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, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air filled the air.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables.
Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were working diligently and using that lovely local expression so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
When visiting hours were over, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted deep vein thrombosis. 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 a little bit of dramatic licence, I couldn’t possibly comment, but hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.