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This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to involve a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.

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, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage 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 appearing more and more unwell.

The Day Progressed

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

By the time we got there, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind was noticeable.

Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit all around, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles 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 working diligently and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get 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”.

How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.