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What plans are you making to age at home?
Aging Well | Last Active: Jun 10, 2022 | Replies (25)Comment receiving replies
We moved from Michigan to southern New Mexico in 2002 into a no steps to enter, one floor, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with 1 walk in shower and kitchen counter tops and dishwasher at almost perfect heights. The yards requires 4 visits a year by our yard service. We followed Mayo's advice and don't use ladders inside or outside the house -- meaning we hire someone to change filters, light bulbs, and dust the fans. We decided it is less expensive to pay as we go along rather than have a medical issue from a ladder fall. Our physician said, "Joe, stop using ladders." My wife said, "I am with him when he is on a ladder." Doc said, "What are you going to do if he falls? Watch? Call 911 if you have your phone?" If we get snow during the winter it is gone by noon. Instead, we have a few "too windy/dusty to be outside walking or riding days" during early Spring.
We anticipate having problems if we need someone to come into the house to help with long-term or hospice care. That might be a problem regardless of location, but we would like to hear if someone has found a good location or resource for reliable in-home long-term or hospice care.
Replies to "We moved from Michigan to southern New Mexico in 2002 into a no steps to enter,..."
Have checked out those gutter things on TV that prevent things from getting to your gutters? I can't remember the name but they seem very effective. My cousin was on a ladder and fell off and broke her hip!
Have you checked with your local senior center on that last question.
We considered moving to New Mexico but were deterred by the lack of hospitals and specialists. Do you have enough medical resources where you are in New Mexico?
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Good morning @elimseoj I'm Scott and I was my wife's caregiver for many years. The last two and a half required hospice care. Doing my research I discovered the offerings for hospice vary all over the map and are highly dependent on what is offered in your community, what is covered under your insurance, etc. My wife really wanted home hospice care when the time came. We only had two organizations offering that in our area. One had high marks, the other not so high so the decision was easy for us. That said, we did have substantial issues with insurance, especially since she was well under Medicare age.
So I would say our biggest learning "plus" was that we needed to do some substantial research for our choice.
We lived in NM for several years and well recall the lines of sand/dust by every door 🙂 We actually moved back to the Midwest due to medical care inequality issues we experienced for her in NM. Hopefully you are not seeing any of that!
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