Saturday, December 14, 2013

Pied a Terre

I did not expect to be posting this week because it is a "week off" from chemo - they call it a rest week during which my body is supposed to recover so they can slam me with chemicals again next week. But something has come up that is worth reporting, even though it has little to do with the actual cancer - at least not directly. Plus it is kind of fun.

When I first learned that I had cancer, my first thought was to imagine Barbara living alone in our difficult to maintain house - a mile down the end of the dirt road. Sure we have a lot of great friends, but most are pretty spread out many being 5 - 15 miles away. Fact is that there is not a lot of density of friends here. Then I started to think of what it would be like for ME to be living here alone and that did not sound too great either. Fact is that we have both always assumed that "someday" we would want to establish a "pied-a-terra" closer to Boston and the medical care that is available there. Well, let me tell you that there is nothing quite like a cancer diagnosis to bring focus to this type of issue. This is a particular problem for couples who are childless or for other reasons have nobody they can count on to look after them as their level of senility increases.

So, during our trips to Boston, we have been looking at various options. Our requirements are:
* Comfortable (Luxury) Condo, Co-op or Apartment
* No maintenance responsibilities
* Close to Boston and Boston medical centers - probably west of Boston.
* Large community - lots of people in a relatively small area. Hundreds
* Continuing Care Available. We want a place that we would never need to move from.

Surprisingly, it turns out that there are NOT all that many places that meet these criteria.

But we found one that does. After some searching, we focused on one particular facility that seems to offer what we want. And they even have a unit available that meets our needs. Last week, our offer for one of the units was accepted. Our current plan is to close at the end of February - just in time for us to use it while we are going for the second set of chemo treatments.

Of course, nothing is all that simple. There is the decorating to consider. And it will take quite a bit of decorating. Also, we want to make a few changes to the layout - which we will probably have done over the summer. There will probably be enough here to justify a separate blog. But don't worry. I am not planning that, though I might provide a few updates in this blog.

So, if you want to check the place out, feel free to browse to http://www.foxhillvillage.com. The floor plan for our unit is similar to the "Hastings" which is shown under "Our Residences" -> "Floor plans". Actually, a "Hastings" unit is what we would have preferred, but our "Ingalls" unit is very similar, except that the second bedroom is 3 feet smaller in our unit.

Just to be clear, we are NOT contemplating a move from New Hampshire at this time. We plan to continue to enjoy our New Hampshire house - except maybe in the winter. It is just that we want to establish ourselves at Fox Hill Village as well.


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