🔗 Share this article

He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life figure. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to a further glass. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.

Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but seeming progressively worse.

As Time Passed

The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

Thus, prior to me managing to put on a festive hat, we resolved to take him to A&E.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board game.

By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and subsequently contracted DVT. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history 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. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.