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 personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to befall a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.
We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.
The Day Progressed
The morning rolled on but the anecdotes weren’t flowing like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.
We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
Upon our arrival, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind permeated the space.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.
Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and Christmas telly. We saw a lighthearted program on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.
The hour was already advanced, and snow was falling, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Recovery and Retrospection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.