Disability & travel

I won’t let my disability and pain deprive my child. That’s why I’m giving holidays abroad another chance this year…

Read my article on the Metro by clicking the picture

Before the pandemic, a summer holiday was, for many Brits, a forgone and exciting conclusion.

But years before covid landed on our shores and threw the travel industry into chaos, I restricted myself from setting foot in another country. The reason? Overwhelming physical pain, immobility and disability.

I have severe endometriosis and a chronic hip issue, and between eight surgeries across both ailments, neither is fully resolved. Endometriosis is incurable so I live with the inflammation, internal damage and pain.

Though the issue inside my hip joint is now repaired, the major muscles around it have atrophied (wasted) through years of dysfunction and the tendons and other structures have become chronically inflamed. 

I’ve lost count of the steroid injections I’ve had into the tissues, the hours of physio, aqua therapy, Accupuncture and everything else in between to try and regain my mobility and reduce this remaining dysfunction. But the reality is it is very hard, if not impossible to get atrophied muscle back to normal function. 

And so, my cycle of immobility and disability continues. 

Between these two conditions, walking, sitting, and standing are very painful for me, and on most days, one or all three are simply not doable.

When you apply that combination of immobility and pain with the arduous task of getting yourself and a small child packed, through check-in, passport control, duty-free, to the gate, on the plane, around the luggage carousel and transferred to a hotel… the appeal of a beach holiday falls off a cliff. For me, there is no relaxation to be had because I am already done in by the time we’ve got to Luton.

All I see when I think of holidays are barriers: how long I have to stand, sit in the car or on the plane, how far I have to walk to and from the gate (spoiler: I physically can’t do it), the chairs and beds I won’t be comfortable on… it feels impossible and frankly, not worth it.

That’s the conclusion I reached after the last holiday abroad I went on to Lanzarote with my husband Andy and our daughter Millie in 2018. It was so physically painful I told my husband I’d never go abroad again. I was limping by the time we’d checked into our hotel and in agony. I felt miserable and spent months having physical rehab and invasive treatments after we got home, just to recover from that week in Lanzarote. 

The physical penalty for travelling was just too high for me. Andy understood and was entirely supportive when I said I wouldn’t do it again. Instead, we took a couple of days alone in a boutique hotel or a hot tub cottage within 90 mins drive of our home in the Midlands every 6-12 months, leaving our daughter with grandparents or trusted babysitters.

It scratched the holiday itch enough to not make me miss summer holidays.

But last summer, Millie asked to go to the beach. On what should have been a boiling hot July day, we took her to Cleethorpes. It was so windy and overcast I sat with a coat on and the temperature never went above 15C. But Millie buried her legs under sand shaped like a mermaid tail, joyously won 2p coins in the arcade, ate candy floss, fish and chips and rounded the day off sticky with ice cream, sand in her hair and wrapped up in Daddy’s hoody. She’s had the time of her life and snored all the way home. 

The four-hour round trip did put me in bed for two weeks, but it had been worth it to see her joy.

Now, as the promise of summer holidays loom into view for Brits, I’ve had a change of heart about holidays abroad because I won’t let my disability deprive my child, the way it has me.

I’m giving the old package holiday another go because being disabled shouldn’t mean I miss out on holidays, or that my little girl should spend years without experiencing the joy of sand between her toes and the sun on her face.

She’s so excited, she’s picked out three bikinis and a rubber ring she wants to use in the pool, and asked us to teach her how to swim. I’d planned to do that when she was a baby but I’ve never been well enough. Guess we will have to figure it out now!

Andy helped me find a hotel that works for me in Gran Canaria. The TUI Blue Orquidea [please keep] isn’t one of those mammoth hotels that takes 20 mins to walk from one side to the other - something I absolutely cannot do.

It is compact, with our room allocated on top of the lobby, a beach within spitting distance of the pool, comfortable seats all around the hotel, and just over 15 mins in a private transfer from the airport. 

Andy went ahead and requested special assistance for me through the airport and to the plane so I don’t have to worry about the very short distances I can walk. I’ve been too embarrassed to use this service before or thought it’s better saved for those already in wheelchairs or with walking aids. 

All of these choices will give me a snowball’s chance in hell of at least getting from my home to the pool there. How much pain I’ll suffer on the way or once I’m there - or back home - remains to be seen.

But I’m not alone. 14 million Brits are disabled, and one in five live in in chronic pain. Surely, we should be able to have holidays every now and then too?

This holiday for my family is also different in that my parents are coming to physically support us. Last time we went alone, I felt immense guilt at inability to give my husband a rest. He had to do most of the physical tasks relating to our daughter as I was so flared up from getting to Lanzarote. 

This time, there are two other adults on hand to help get things done as well as share this special week with Millie.

I’m also finally putting aside my inward (and unfair) sense of shame and embarrassment for using a wheelchair in the airport, and needing to holiday with my parents at 35 in the hope that I will feel alive again, rather than just surviving - swinging between my freelance work as a journalist, parenting, and pain.

So many people live with the physical restrictions I do - and worse - and I’m hoping by being braver, asking what for what I really want, taking the help and accessibility support available instead of cutting myself - and my child - off from the beauty of the world, our lives will open up again.

I’ve long spoken to Millie about my dream to see the beautiful Sequoia forests in California, and my hope to see her marvel at the magic of Disneyland. She really wants that too. Maybe if this trip goes well, I will allow myself to plan accessible trips to those destinations too and make both our dreams come true.

ENDS