I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to scarcely conscious during the journey.
This individual has long been known as a truly outsized personality. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to another brandy. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.
It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, 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. Medical staff had treated him and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.
The Day Progressed
The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Deteriorating Condition
When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit in every direction, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.
Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
When visiting hours were over, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.
It was already late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?
Recovery and Retrospection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or a little bit of dramatic licence, 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”.
