Country living..20 minutes from 'anything'..

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr._Graybeard When I read all this worry over a home's proximity to hospitals, I have to think about my great aunt and uncle. They lived on the homestead where DGU was born in the heart of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Google Slapneck, Mich., if interested). He died in 2002 at age 87 at the house where he lived his entire life; his DW celebrated her 95th birthday shortly before she passed in 2010. She was driving from the farm to a nearby village for groceries on a regular basis up till a few weeks before she died. If anybody had told them they should move to within hailing distance of a hospital, I'm sure they would have just laughed.

This is an anecdote. Yes, it is nice that they had a long life. But, what about those people who do die because they didn't get to a hospital quickly enough or they get there and get substandard care or it is too late for an optimal result? I mean, I don't think that there is any real doubt that sometimes people get to a hospital quickly and live who would have died when if they were farther away.

Sure, there are people who that doesn't happen to (most people). There are people who live close to a hospital and die anyway (distance doesn't matter). Maybe some people live close to a hospital and have a delay getting there anyway (auto accident on the way or busy traffic). But, surely there is no real doubt that sometimes being closer does make a difference.

Now, some may feel that it isn't a big enough difference to be dispositive which is fine. Given OP's wife's heart problem in the past however I think that would be dispositive for me.

[Mr._Graybeard]

If his DW's heart condition is a concern, perhaps the OP should invest in a portable cardiac defibrillator and training in how to use it properly. Anoxia from a major heart attack can result in brain damage in just a few minutes. That's what happened to my late uncle, who lived in West Allis (another anecdote). EMTs saved his life, but he was never the same.

[Meadbh]

We all have to die. I would rather live my life to the full and drop dead at home than move close to a hospital so that the ER team could do CPR on me. YMMV.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh We all have to die. I would rather live my life to the full and drop dead at home than move close to a hospital so that the ER team could do CPR on me. YMMV.

+1

I've been following this discussion wondering if I should do some real estate investing with a developer who is building senior living apartments attached to a cardiac ER.

[ejman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh We all have to die. I would rather live my life to the full and drop dead at home than move close to a hospital so that the ER team could do CPR on me. YMMV.

Dunno, it seems the take away from this thread is that if one lives next door to a premier hospital with a correspondingly primo ER then immortality is guaranteed...

[meierlde]

Rather that the distance to a hospital the question might be the distance to the nearest emt base. Emts can do a lot of the stabilization involved. (also can do cpr if need be).
Of course if your in the country on a drive you might still have an accident and need to be medivaced to a level 1 center, which in some western states is just one per state, or in the case of at least Wyoming 0 per state. (In Ne the centers are in Omaha a long way from Scottsbluff.) Basically you are then calling out hospitals directly related to medical schools

Note that some hospital chains have a center with specialists that er physicians can connect with over the net to solve the problem of no local specialists. I do expect more of this in the future.

[Moemg]

The distance from grocery stores would drive me bonkers. Plus if you move and realize it is a mistake you will be moving again when you are older .

[unclemick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo +1 I've been following this discussion wondering if I should do some real estate investing with a developer who is building senior living apartments attached to a cardiac ER.

Three blocks from the ER. Plus 120 miles from 'the farm' where DW's Brother second heart attack got him a year ago out in the field.

?Best of both worlds? Country for peace and quiet or boogie in the city.

heh heh heh -

[38Chevy454]

Life is about managing risk. What is acceptable risk to some is not acceptable to others. This is how I see the "close to hospital argument" being thrown around the discussion. Life is also about tradeoffs. Trading one risk for a different risk. The right answer for each person is what meets their (perceived or real) risk and the tradeoff associated with that.

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ejman Dunno, it seems the take away from this thread is that if one lives next door to a premier hospital with a correspondingly primo ER then immortality is guaranteed...

A. That’s BS.
B. Immortality is not what everyone wants.

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 38Chevy454 Life is about managing risk. What is acceptable risk to some is not acceptable to others. This is how I see the "close to hospital argument" being thrown around the discussion. Life is also about tradeoffs. Trading one risk for a different risk. The right answer for each person is what meets their (perceived or real) risk and the tradeoff associated with that.

+1
You pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Katsmeow]

I saw something once that asked whether you found the house or the location more important. My first thought was house was more important. And, then I realized I'm unhappy with my current home not because of the house, but because of the location. Of course, ideally you have a great house and great location. But, reality is that often some level of compromise has to be made. And, I think when it gets right down to it for me the location is more important than the house. That doesn't mean house is not important. It is. But, a great house can't make up for a location I don't like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meadbh We all have to die. I would rather live my life to the full and drop dead at home than move close to a hospital so that the ER team could do CPR on me. YMMV.

I don't think this is an either/or. This seems a false choice. That is, I think I could still live my life to the full and be within reasonable distance of a hospital. When we bought a house, we wanted a hospital within 30 minutes away. That seemed fairly reasonable to me. I still think we are living life to the full.... But, yes, YMMV.

[brucethebroker]

Quote:

So now wondering how long we will be able to stay. Yard chores pile up quickly and are slow to get done. Bedroom is on 2nd floor. Ambulance is fairly close. Police may or may not come if there is an issue here in the "boonies". I turn 60 and hubby turns 66 soon. I think about adding a 1st floor master or moving to a ranch in the area. ..but I LOVE my house/yard/privacy. Moving into town would mean leaving life long friends and our church. What happens if one of us can no longer drive...

I have seen living rooms (in the traditional homes with both a LR and FR), dens and garages turned into bedrooms to fix the "no bedrooms on first floor" problem. Is that a possibility?

[ivinsfan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsmeow I saw something once that asked whether you found the house or the location more important. My first thought was house was more important. And, then I realized I'm unhappy with my current home not because of the house, but because of the location. Of course, ideally you have a great house and great location. But, reality is that often some level of compromise has to be made. And, I think when it gets right down to it for me the location is more important than the house. That doesn't mean house is not important. It is. But, a great house can't make up for a location I don't like. I don't think this is an either/or. This seems a false choice. That is, I think I could still live my life to the full and be within reasonable distance of a hospital. When we bought a house, we wanted a hospital within 30 minutes away. That seemed fairly reasonable to me. I still think we are living life to the full.... But, yes, YMMV.

This is an interesting comment if I remember correctly you have done quite a bit of moving houses. Yet you ended up at a place where you are not happy..does this mean we change as we age or that sometimes we aren't really focusing on the correct thing when buying a house. In that case I'd just tell the OP to stay as he really seems to be waffling about buying property and building from scratch.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CountryGal We lived in a town for the first 7 years of married life (where we grew up). EVERYTHING was within 5 min. We went out a lot and socialized all the time. We then moved to the country. 20 min to everything. 10 min to grocery. 3 min to mom and pop. 3 min to a few local eating places (pizza and diner type). We don't go out often, especially when it would mean 30-40 min drive coming home late at night. We have been here 31 years now. So now wondering how long we will be able to stay. Yard chores pile up quickly and are slow to get done. Bedroom is on 2nd floor. Ambulance is fairly close. Police may or may not come if there is an issue here in the "boonies". I turn 60 and hubby turns 66 soon. I think about adding a 1st floor master or moving to a ranch in the area. ..but I LOVE my house/yard/privacy. Moving into town would mean leaving life long friends and our church. What happens if one of us can no longer drive... It is a dilemma to be sure and a bit scary. I would NOT move to an area like this in my later years. Moving back sounds great, but in an emergency situation when someone is ill or disabled, it isn't easy to do.

Are the stairs straight or do they have a turn in the middle? If straight a chair elevator can be installed up the stairs to provide access. Although adds I have see suggest that even with a turn the right company can install a stair lift.
As to outside work there are yard services, and between handypersons and cleaning services the inside can be taken care of.

[HFWR]

Depending on the specific “boonie”, there could be spotty/no internet, few/no service companies, few/no medical specialists, few/no decent restaurants, limited/no road services (think snow)...

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivinsfan This is an interesting comment if I remember correctly you have done quite a bit of moving houses. Yet you ended up at a place where you are not happy..does this mean we change as we age or that sometimes we aren't really focusing on the correct thing when buying a house.

In our case, it is because our needs have changed.

When we moved to our current house (we were downsizing from a much larger house that we no longer needed as kids went away to school), we were constrained in choice by the fact that we had 5 large dogs. We had to buy a house where we were allowed to have 5 dogs. So, the things we don't like about this house were things that I knew about when we bought the house, but we had to choose from the houses where we could have 5 dogs and this was the best one. I can't think of a house that we looked at that I would have liked better than this one.

How have our needs changed? Well we knew that we weren't going to replace the dogs as they aged and passed away. At this point, we have only 2 dogs left and they are both 10 years old. We are at a point where we could live in a "regular" subdivision from a dog standpoint so we are not constrained by location as we once were.

Basically, this house was fine when we needed to be here for the dogs. It was the best of the choices. But, without needing to live here for that reason, the negatives are not balanced by the huge positive of being necessary to have our dogs.

[kcowan]

We had a good friend who died because he had an unexpected heart attack at his remote cottage at a young age. It was a 90 minute drive to the nearest trauma center. Life can be random.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HFWR Depending on the specific “boonie”, there could be spotty/no internet, few/no service companies, few/no medical specialists, few/no decent restaurants, limited/no road services (think snow)...

Except for a couple of years in my late teens when I got my first apartment, I have never lived closer than 30 minutes from town. I have never had any desire to live in the city.

Our current home is about 30 minutes from the closest big grocery store, my local doctor office, or decent restaurants. Ironically, I still have a Home Depot about 15 minutes away, and get broadband cable internet.

I've never minded driving to town for groceries, as it's typically only once a week. But I could always order online and have them delivered if it comes to that. Or, I could hire someone to take me on errands.

We built our home to be our forever home. Single level, roll-in curbless shower, 36" wide doors throughout, etc.

As for yard work, when using the walk-behind mower gets to be too much I'll buy a rider. When I can't manage that, I'll hire out or ask a family member.

We do get snow up here on the mountain, but it usually only lasts a day or two. When we don't need to get to work anymore, we'll just wait it out and do our shopping after it melts. We're getting less snow each year anyway with the changing climate.

Generations got by just fine living much more isolated than I am. Just because I can live 5 minutes from a doctor doesn't mean I have to. Yeah, I might die in a situation city slickers would survive, but we all die sometime.

[HFWR]

Sudden death isn’t so much the problem as having a chronic condition that requires multiple doctor visits per week.