Last May, I came to know a child in Tbilisi, Georgia, whose tiny body was killing him. I met him while taking a trailside break from a walk through the world.
Alex Nikolaishvili was just five months old at the time. He was the nephew of an Out of Eden Walk guide named Eka Nikolaishvili. Alex was undersized and hot pink. He wouldn’t eat. He had trouble breathing. A medical exam at a local children’s hospital revealed serious defects of the heart and lungs. The doctors said the baby probably would die without specialized thoracic surgery. He would likely die, they added bleakly, even with it. I wrote a story about Alex, Eka, and Alex’s mother, Liza, called “Golden Fleece.” In it I described the fearsome ordeals faced by parents of children with congenital defects—struggles made all the more agonizing by the knowledge that these conditions can incubate within family trees.
That story tapped into the kindness of people across the world, including many followers of the walk. A crowd-funding campaign organized by Thierry Bussy, a French friend and long-distance walker who then was rambling on foot through the Caucasus, helped pay for some of Alex’s expensive procedures.
Now, Eka sends an update from Germany, where Alex has journeyed for lifesaving treatment:
On December 24, 2015, one-year-old Alex Nikolaishvili was operated on at Uni Klinikum Marburg, Hessen, Germany. The wonderful, talented doctors performed a unique and fantastic surgery lasting the whole night. As a result, Alex is safe and healthy, living in Kirchhain, Hessen, with his mom and aunt.
We would love to warmly thank Uni Klinikum Marburg surgeons Dr Xhevxhet Ademaj, Dr. Dario Zovko, Dr. Knöppel, and chief of the department Dr. Peter Seipelt for their professional consideration and action.
We personally thank Vasily Voyt for helping Alex the very first day we arrived to Germany.
We also thank all the people who supported little Alex.
— Eka Nikolaishvili
Baby Alex Nikolaishvili with his mother, Liza, in a hospital in Tbilisi.
Video by Paul Salopek
