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This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life figure. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to another brandy. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the newest uproar to involve a regional politician, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.

We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

Therefore, before I could even don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to get him to the hospital.

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

A Rapid Decline

Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that great term of endearment so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

It was already late, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?

The Aftermath and the Story

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, 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”.