Stuck

 

I've been excited at the thought of returning to New Mexico.  Then I started looking at nursing homes there.  The thing is, while the original plan was to move in with Cailin, the economy and housing market may make that impractical or impossible, which means, if I live long enough, at some point I'll need nursing care.  So I started looking at what that looks like in New Mexico vs what it looks like here.

The problem is that should I need something like memory care or medical support, Santa Fe has the WORST options for Medicaid recipients.  There are two 4 star rated nursing homes within 100 miles of Santa Fe; the rest are generally 1 star.  In NM I'd have to have a Medicaid waiver as I move into a nursing home

Here in CA, there are several 4 and 5 star Medicaid nursing homes in Sonoma and Marin counties, and Medicaid is already in place.

I may never need a nursing home.  I could well die of something long before I get to that point. So should this be the ultimate criteria of whether I stay or go? I'm not sure.

Right now, coming up on (only) 65, I see 70 looming, and then 80. The idea here is to keep as much burden off Cay as possible as I age, but I also find that even the pre-planning stresses her out. This is what I wanted to avoid by having Ellen in charge of all this. It pains me that it is falling to Cay.

Right now I am at a decision point I don't want to be in. 

There's a community in Novato that is opening it's wait list next month. It's a "voucher attached" community, which means if I move there, I lose my housing choice voucher, and I will no longer have the option of using a voucher to move out if I decide not to stay.  It's a good location if I am never going to be able to leave CA, and I know someone who lives there and loves it.  It's close to transit, and would be easier to get into The City for events, and close to a wetlands I like to photograph birds in. There is no dish washer and less storage space, but other than that, it's rather nice.  The gym is also very nice.  My rent will likely be higher, especially if utilities are included, because I will no longer have access to the utilities benefits I have now.

I have everything I want in an apartment in Santa Fe. The apartments are larger and have washer and dryer in unit.  I know people there. I can take classes at the Community College for $5/ credit hour, and use the gym and warm water pool at the college with that.  The air is dryer, so it's easier for me to breathe, and I tend to have less arthritis pain there. Presbyterian Hospital (my hospital of choice in NM) is now open in Santa Fe. And I really love NM and think of it as home.  Utilities are much more expensive, and I'll have expensive healthcare co-pays if I go back. Gas and groceries are much cheaper. 

And of course I can stay put.  Hating on this apartment right now has a lot to do with the time of year (Ellen's death day was this past week, and coming up on the holidays I always dream of NM).  Yes, there are some rough characters both in the complex and the neighborhood, and the social environment is not what I expected, because there is a lot of nasty back-biting that looks more like a middle school lunchroom than a senior apartment complex, and I'm not used to that, nor comfortable with it.  My apartment is small, there are plumbing issues that have not been resolved, the pool and spa are generally out of order (most of the summer the heaters and pumps were broken), the amenities and events promised in the brochure and we had in the past have been eliminated, in part because of security issues, but some just were never reinstated since the COVID epidemic.  I love my doctors and hospital here, and the only other senior apartments in the area that are not "voucher attached" are "no pets" and have a 2 star rating. 

Finally, there is a sense of urgency to pick a spot because of my age.  It's increasingly difficult to move. On June 30th, I will have rounded the corner to "closer to 70 than 60", which is extremely daunting. I suppose that's a part of why I'm looking at the distant future.  20 years ahead (when I may need nursing care) seems like a long time, but considering how quickly the last 10 years have flown by for me, it also feels like I'm on the doorstep.  And while the concern about the physical strain of moving at 70 is very immediate, I'm not sure I should be focusing so much on what will happen in 20.  

The biggest time pressure is the Novato option, which I have to deal with in the next couple weeks. 

So my options are these:

1.  Go to Novato and be locked into that apartment literally for the rest of my life, but have more options of things to do and places to go in CA.
2.  Go to Santa Fe and hope that if I ever need nursing care I can get to La Vida Llena, which has a 5 star nursing and memory care facility that is listed as accepting Medicaid, but be HOME.
3.  Stay put and try to find some gratitude in the situation, putting aside the loneliness and unhappiness here, try again to make this place into a home.