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This individual has long been known as a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and not one to say no to a further glass. During family gatherings, he is the person discussing the latest scandal to catch up with a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club for forty years.

It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.

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

A Deteriorating Condition

By the time we got there, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit in every direction, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides 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 snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?

The Aftermath and the Story

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, 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 its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.