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  • RE: Update on US/UK Expats in Azores - to Dr. John Muir

    posted by Deleted user in Azores forum 

    Hi, John,

    I'm guilty of following this site and community most often via brief email updates, I'm afraid, so this is the first I've been back since anyone else last posted (last year it looks like). Obviously, I WISH things HERE were much busier and active. As it is, I have spent most of my time researching elsewheres for answers to my Azores questions...
    I ALMOST had a little house on Pico, set up to rent with the option to buy later. But somehow, someway, that little pink house on Pico (that had languished in listing limbo for almost 3 years) suddenly went * poof! * just WEEKS after I began sorting my ducks to a row, so to speak. I was dumbfounded and devastated. And had to pull back on my plans and regroup, ending up spending yet another winter in Illinois. The weather here is murderous on my condition, which starts with the excruciating non-stop pain of severe spinal stenosis (which limits my mobility to about 20% of what it used to be, but I can still get around using a cane and a lot of pre-PLANNING) and includes the more recent dx of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and resulting partial-vision loss in my right eye, nd the whole host of symptoms that have made my life that more difficult (so watch for my typos and I apologize in advance for my fat-fingers or spastic mis-types). I need to be in BETTER PHYSICAL HEALTH in order to better weather the progressive symptoms of the MS, but it's a conundrum, a paradox, here, where the weather conspires to keep me shut up indoors 90% of the time: I can't get out to take a walk or get much-needed exercise because it is either too cold, too hot, raining heavily, or snowing or... whatever; the temperature is the worst for my MS, I overheat easily, so the Azores climate is what I am most after, being a quite-consistnt and moderate 'cool' climate. This is become too long again, I'm afraid. You ASKED... lol
    This past month I found the apartment I've been looking for: cetnrally located near Ponta Delgada shopping and services, clean, modern and completely furnished. The drawback is that it's a second floor walkup (stairs are HARD for me), BUT, I'vedecided that I plan to get out once or twice a day for a good walk anyway, so I'm only going to be tackling the worst part of them twice a day -the two times UP-at most. And I can afford it, on my fixed income. I've gotten my passport paperwork addressed, this time, and will be putting the first months rent and deposit down in exchange for the keys in the next week or so!
    So it's looking VERY GOOD, this late March of 2013, that I will be living in Ponta Delgada and reporting here, FROM THERE, by the start of this summer! ;-)
    For me it will be a trip that's taken YEARS (not hours or days, on the bus then planes) to complete. i'd be lying if i didn't tell anyone else this: it would have been sooo much easier if i'd had a friend or roommate to share in the planning, travelling, moving, etc. Being so restricted, mobility-wise, has certsinly made it mofe difficult - but NOT IMPOSSIBLE!
    I have determined that I will be using my little cam-corder to vid me as I embark (via bus) that day to Boston, then fly to Ponta Delgada, and from then on, and sharing my experiences online, because I want others who are similarily disabled - those of us who have LIMITED physical ability and health that can be made marginally to markedly BETTER with CHANGE in climate, exercise, diet and spiritual GROWTH - to know a change like THIS - making a huge leap to another country, to another LIFE of beginnings NOT slow, terminal 'ends' - CAN BE DONE!
    I certainly don't want my days to simply 'get worse and worse' as my condition is ALLOWED. by restrictions of climate, geography, whatever, to worsen, towards complete invalid status, a nursing home address, a tragic and early end. I - and I know OTHERS - want to do whate ver it takes to facilitate IMPROVEMENT, to ADD YEARS to our lives, to RECLAIM OUR LIVES not let our conditions and/or disabilities claim us to an early end...
    THAT is where I am now. I am starting, as I speak, to sell off EVERYTHNG, in my current apartment here in the States, because the one I am moving to is furnished, AND because it is too expensive for me to take along a lot of tchokes and knick knacks. Of those I want to keep, I am pre-boxing for my family to SHIP to me via FedEx later. So it will be hard, condensing myself down to a carryon and 1 suitcase, at least initially... The financial end of all this is coming up with a couple grand of cash in less than 30 days, in ADDITION to the small benefit amount I receive monthly, in order to fund all this. So I'm praying my 'possessions' will be of enough value to others, as I shed them, that I will be able to pay the landlord her rent and deposit THIS week, and the vet (for my cats vaccinations and travel-sedatives), my plane tickets and the extra amount for my catsfare, any cab/bus/etc. costs, NEXT month... ;-)
    Will share updates here and/or on my facebook page!

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