Normality comes to visit, and Gareth just about makes it to India!

“You may remember me writing back in February about ‘Making and Meeting Internet friends’ ( https://undertheinfluenceofsix.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/making-and-meeting-internet-friends/ ). Well, my friendship with Mary had continued to grow, and it wasn’t unusual for us to spend over an hour on the phone to each other, with our other halves intermittently overhearing and adding in their own snippets of conversation via us down the receiver. In the autumn of 2010 Mary came to stay with me and Ga for the weekend. Where was Dan you may be asking? Wasn’t it a bit rude to meet up without him? Well, due to the infection risk, of either of them passing on potentially life-threatening bugs to the other, so began the set up of a four-way friendship where only three were ever present (the next summer I would visit them and leave Ga at home).

On this occasion, we cooked nice food for Mary, and took her round a local community arts festival, drinking coffee at a poetry recital. We introduced her to the delights of Cardiff, but more poignantly, we introduced her to our normality, and it was intoxicating to realise that she came into our house and did not look in at our CF-shaped lives as an outsider does, but as one who feels right at home, as our normal was her normal.

For me, it was invigorating, and as we chit-chatted, and conversation was so naturally peppered with staccato CF talk, I felt as if inwardly I’d been holding my breathe, but now was able to let out the biggest, relaxing sigh. Spending time with Mary turned our unusual existence on it’s head, for here we all were, in a bubble where all things CF were the norm. Where it was natural to compare the pros and cons of different nebulisers, and she wasn’t any more aware of Ga’s cough than I was. Where Ga didn’t feel the need to hide his Creon tablets before eating, and some of those ‘CF husband-wife’ interactions we normally kept behind closed doors were comfortably acted out in the presence of this precious friend, who had just come 4 hours by Megabus, from doing those same things herself.

Gareth never showed the slightest interest in getting to know anyone else with CF. As far as he was concerned, the less thoughts given to the illness the better. But it was sweet seeing how his ears did prick up as Mary and I were chatting on the phone, or in person, and he’d begin to get inquisitive about this other man, who had many things in common with him despite their shared genetic mutation. Even though they didn’t ever get to properly meet up, I think there was a mutual admiration and interest in the other, because of the friendship Mary and I had. And after our weekend together, Mary and Gareth’s friendship in it’s own right was cemented too.

Once the weekend was over, Ga began gearing up for his next trip abroad, this time to the Indian city of Mumbai. He was liaising with a local charity called Reality Tours ( http://www.realitytoursandtravel.com ) that run tours in the large Dharavi slum, raising income to run a local community centre and Youth Empowerment programme amongst other things. Gareth connected with them, as they too were seeking to counteract the negative stereotypes outsiders associate with slum living.

Ga was a competitive soul, and no more so than with himself. This trip was gearing up to be his biggest yet, as he was planning on actually covering two university assignments in it, and hence was adamant he needed to go for an entire month (I did get him down to 3 and a half weeks)! He’d never been to India before but was keen to experience slum living in a different continent. And as always, he wanted to live where the action was, so Reality Tours arranged for him to stay with a local family in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, with over 1 million residents.

Now as you may well be able to imagine, from my point of view, this was a little stressful and worrying. However, the stress actually began before he’d even set off, as somehow Ga had got his information wrong, and even though he’d assured me (after I questioned this several times) he would get his Indian visa as soon as he arrived in Mumbai, what transpired was that roughly a week before he was due to fly out he realised India was different to Africa and a visa was indeed needed BEFORE he arrived there. I can’t remember exactly when he realised this, but I do remember that what was supposed to be a romantic date night eating out at Chapter Arts Centre turning into a damage-control situation, and instead of enjoying a relaxing glass of wine I was standing outside in the dark (the only place to get signal), liaising with the airline company to get Ga’s flight delayed by 48 hours so there was some chance of him actually getting the required visa, dispatched from London, before he took off. Why me and not Ga I hear you ask? Good question! Because as awesome as Ga was at many things, finances and boring organisational stuff was not his forte so our credit card was in my name).

With CF, whatever plans you make, there’s always uncertainty that you’ll be able to do what you’ve planned, as developing a chest infection often means that plans have to be cancelled or rearranged. I did not appreciated the added uncertainty of Indian visas arriving within a 5 day window… which definitely increased our stress levels and potentially could have scuppered Ga’s university deadlines, as well as our bank account. In the end it was close, very close. The morning of Ga’s rearranged flight arrived with no visa. I went off to work, leaving him packed and ready to go (if the postman brought a certain package). He had to leave by 2pm at the latest to get to Birmingham to make his flight. At 10am he rings me elatedly, as he has his Indian visa in his hand! And then he’s out the door and off! I breathe a sigh of relief, inwardly say ‘Never again!’ and get on with my day.

There would be time enough when I got home to mentally deal with being apart for the longest time so far, and to check his live flight information to know he’d arrived in Mumbai safely.