How I coped with a family health scare 6,000 miles from home

“Love you,” I told my dad back home in the States, not wanting our FaceTime call from my hotel room in Yerevan, Armenia, to end. As I hung up, the tears came. I’d known when I left for this trip that he would be having an atherectomy—a procedure to clear plaque from the arteries around his heart—while I was away. But I’d chosen to go anyway.

He’s always encouraged me to follow my heart, even when his betrayed him, so I’d compartmentalized the hospital visit ahead of the trip—a distant date on the calendar. But now the day was here and I wished I was home. What if this was the last time I talked to him?

I was halfway through Intrepid’s 11-day Georgia and Armenia Explorer trip, part of a broader five-week itinerary to Central Asia and the Caucasus. I’d loved Georgia on a previous adventure—dodging cows on long hikes through the Caucasus Mountains and trekking to Shkhara glacier—and this journey covered areas I hadn’t seen before. Back then, Armenia, with its monasteries and markets, hadn’t registered on my travel radar and I was excited to explore its rich history now, along with Georgia.

Exploring the off-course Caucasus

Over the past few days, we’d visited decrepit, crumbling Soviet spas in the resort town of Tskaltubo, learning about the history of Georgia’s mineral hot springs and the state-sponsored treatments Soviet citizens received as part of their health care.

The facilities, used from the 1920s until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, were eerie in the best way. A lover of urban decay, I’d meandered through five different sanitariums, marveling at the peeling wallpaper and chipped paint, a dining room with a tree growing in it and another room with a pair of forsaken high heels that made me wonder about their story.

… We were set to stay in a simple lodge where the facilities were likely to be sparse. I worried about whether there would be reliable wi-fi. What if my family couldn’t get in touch with me? What if I needed to fly home and was far from an airport? My stomach clenched at the thought of being stuck.

At Otias Ezo, a local winery owned and run by the descendants of the famous Georgian author, Otia Ioseliani, we’d explored his two-storey study, filled with ephemera from an illustrious career, preserved since his death. Here, we also sampled homemade cider and Georgia’s famous amber wine, so-called because of the use of skins, stems and other parts of the grape plant, which paint the wine with a distinctive orange hue.

Finally, on our way from Georgia to the Armenian border, we stopped at Vardzia, the ruins of a 12th-century sprawling cave monastery complex, where we’d ducked through narrow doorways and climbed ladders to see medieval murals in the Church of Dormition. Looking out from the ancient hillside caves over the valley below, the profundity of passing generations gnawed at me. I hope he makes it through this, I’d thought, with the atherectomy just days away.

A departure from the familiar

I’ve always had a close relationship with my dad. In long conversations, shared over our mutual coffee addiction (his black, mine with milk), we regularly discuss everything from his hobbies (composing music, sculpture, poetry) to my job as a school administrator, my budding writing career and my daughter.

Through it all, he’s always been my biggest supporter and I’ve supported him through his degenerative heart disease, which he’s had for over two decades. This procedure, we hoped, would alleviate the debilitating fatigue he’d been experiencing over the past year. Still, each time he goes under anaesthetic and a tube is threaded through him, it could kill him. At 85, a ‘minimally invasive’ procedure felt newly precarious.

On the hotel bed in Yerevan, I curled up in a ball. His procedure was tomorrow. I opened my phone to scroll the itinerary for the next few days and it sounded impossible to miss: A 1,000-year-old monastery in the shadow of Mt Ararat (reputed to be the final resting place of Noah’s Ark), lunch with a local family, comparing Armenian winemaking to the Georgian methods in a lush vineyard, a hike through Dilijan National Park, and a swim in Lake Sevan.

But we were set to stay in a simple lodge where the facilities were likely to be sparse. I worried about whether there would be reliable wi-fi. What if my family couldn’t get in touch with me? What if I needed to fly home and was far from an airport? My stomach clenched at the thought of being stuck.

Following my instinct amid new friends

I texted Yulia, our local leader. ‘My dad is having a medical procedure tomorrow. I think I need to stay in Yerevan, in case I need to fly home. Am I able to stay at this hotel?’ It felt uncomfortable to diverge from the group, which in the previous days had bonded closely over charcuterie and wine.

Yulia jumped into action, asking whether he was alright, whether I was OK and, most importantly, how she could help. She quickly arranged an extension to my stay at the hotel so I wouldn’t have to change rooms, asked what I planned to do in Yerevan after the group left and whether I needed help booking excursions.

As a member of the ‘sandwich generation’, with a dependent 22-year-old daughter and ageing parents, committing to travel is often hard. There’s always a possibility that family ties might suddenly call me back home.

The next day, as the group left me to continue our itinerary, she checked in repeatedly, texting me from the road—a calm anchor in the storm.

My fellow travelers formed a remote ring of support around me, too. A new friend from Belgium texted a photo of her wine glass raised before a dusky vineyard with a note that read: “This one is for your dad.”  Another of our group texted that she’d said a prayer for him at the monastery.

A homecoming before the homecoming

Back in Yerevan, I awaited news. Needing to stay busy, I went to the launderette and washed clothes, finding comfort in familiar tasks. I made an appointment for a pedicure, comforted by the soaking of heels that had spent a month walking the Silk Road. As my nails dried, I received a text from my stepmom. It was over. He was awake and recovering. I exhaled, wiping tears of relief from my eyes.

When the Intrepid group returned to Yerevan the next day, we met for a farewell dinner that felt like a homecoming. A garland of lights lit the warm evening air as we dined al fresco in a courtyard, overhung by green foliage. Raising glasses of champagne, we toasted a beautiful tour, new friendships and the possibilities of travel. Yulia hugged me. “I’m glad he’s OK. You did the right thing.” I felt assured I had.

As a member of the ‘sandwich generation’, with a dependent 22-year-old daughter and ageing parents, committing to travel is often hard. There’s always a possibility that family ties might suddenly call me back home. But travel, by definition, is letting go of control, and my time in Georgia and Armenia taught me I will always choose to stretch beyond my comfort zone—because I know that’s what my dad would want for me, too.

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Lisa VanderVeen traveled on Intrepid’s 11-day Georgia and Armenia Explorer.

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