I Took a Family Friend to the Emergency Room – and his condition shifted from peaky to scarcely conscious on the way.
He has always been a man of a truly outsized character. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he would be the one chatting about the most recent controversy to catch up with a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.
It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.
As Time Passed
The morning rolled on but the anecdotes weren’t flowing like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.
Therefore, before I could even don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.
We thought about calling an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the distinctive odor of hospital food and wind filled the air.
What was distinct, however, was the mood. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed 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 peculiar to the area: “duck”.
Heading Home for Leftovers
Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. We viewed something silly 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 it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?
Recovery and Retrospection
Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
If that is completely accurate, or contains some artistic license, 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”.