Greetings from Tbilisi, the sweltering, frenetic, broken-down, beautiful capital of the Republic of Georgia.
This morning’s breakfast was a still-warm, huge, boat-shaped loaf, cooked on the inside of a clay oven (a little like a tandoor) by our local, quite literal hole-in-the-wall baker, with honey and butter. Eaten with black coffee while we looked out of our window at our courtyard cat tending to its kitten.
If you think it sounds idyllic, you’re right. But, as ever, the truth is a bit more complicated than the few sentences used to tell a story.
As the saying goes: “Wherever you go, there you are.” And that is especially true when you have a chronic illness.
I’ve lost count of the number of weeks I’ve been taking my weekly injections of methotrexate (MTX). Once I was past the worst of the side effects, the improvements in my health were fairly radical. But, no matter how radical, I’m not the same as I was a year ago, and this trip is helping me accept that I never will be.
When I was first diagnosed with subglottic stenosis – a condition that causes scar tissue to grow repeatedly in your airway until you whistle as you breathe – and then went under treatment for a second autoimmune condition which left me bedbound for weeks at a time, I believed I’d never travel again.
But MTX has allowed me to do things I thought were off limits to me forever. I’ve run around Wrocław with my little boy, hunting for their small brass gnomes, and sat with him in a Polish milk bar while he demands “pierogi, pierogi, pierogi”.
I’ve caught a rickety cable car in the rain across a river to an old 1960s funfair – where we rode the slightly hair-raising, rusty ferris wheel – and a train through the mountains of Georgia with my sleeping baby on my lap.
Even a month ago, walking down to a local cafe for a cup of tea was something that took immense planning and a battle of wills between my exhaustion and my desire just to make life a little bigger.
That’s not to say that this holiday hasn’t taken an enormous amount of planning. I had to arrange to bring a month’s worth of medication, and the equipment, my pillbox and the wallet that keeps my injection pens cool without a refrigerator take up more space than my wardrobe. Things that would have once been luxuries while travelling light are now essentials.
Honestly, mostly it’s just been about changing my expectations. Perhaps travelling with a toddler makes this easier.
I couldn’t have known but, actually, travelling with a toddler when you have a chronic illness is a blessing, because you adapt to their rhythms. I also take a long daytime nap. I go to sleep around the same time as him.
And, whereas the old me would have been running around the city streets for hours, taking pictures, hunting out the best bookshop or flea market or swimming lake, this new version of me is happy to take a taxi to the local park and watch my son run up and down in the mosaic fountain, full of joy. I plan each day around the worst day of health, so any extra energy is a gift.
Get busy living
Travel is not like it used to be. But I’m overjoyed that it is still part of me; part of my life. And, like most chronically ill people, after a year, I’m just beginning the journey of acceptance.
Yesterday, my MTX dose hit me hard: I could do nothing but lie in bed in a darkened room and drift in and out of sleep, listening to true crime podcasts.
I understood, finally, that I have to stop treating chronic illness like an aggressor, an enemy, a stranger that’s come to take away parts of my life from me. This illness is as much part of me as any other.
If anything, I need to treat it tenderly, with accommodations – just like I would a toddler. To hear and attend to its needs, which simply can’t be helped and will not be ignored.
When I was finally able to get out of bed last night, I woke to fresh tomato and cucumber salad and khachapuri – a flat loaf filled with cheese and butter which is as fattening and delicious as it sounds, homemade by our neighbour, and brought to our doorstep as a gift.
Wherever you go, there you are. It feels quite miraculous that me and my family are here in Georgia. It’s not how I used to travel, but it’s still rich, still a great privilege, and joyful. Even on the hard days.
As another saying goes: “You have to get busy living or get busy dying.” I know which I choose.
Kerry Hudson is an Aberdeen-born, award-winning writer of novels, memoirs and screenplays
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