MITCH STURGEON
Author and Blogger Living With MS
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I live in the great state of Maine. What’s so great about it? Let’s start with lobsters, blueberries, and potatoes, sometimes all in one sitting. Maine is home to Stephen King, the most trees per square mile of any state (suck it, New Hampshire), and did I mention lobsters, and snow? Don’t forget the snow.…
To read the full blog post at multiplesclerosis.net, click here.
3 Replies to “In Search of the Ideal MS Climate”
I have had MS 20 years, and use a walking stick and have many issues with spasticity and core strength. Heat and humidity decreases walking endurance and gait smoothness. I happen to live in NH – I’ll ignore your shot – and I am 50, employed full time, and hopefully will be for many years to come – despite my increasing disability. Anyway, shoveling and roof raking is near impossible. My oldest son, goes away to college next year (I hope). Fortunate that I was able to afford insulation improvement to decrease the ice dams and eliminate roof raking.
Shoveling will fall to my youngest. After that my partner. We put up 1.5 cords of delivered wood this year. I mostly watched my partner due it as bending and twisting and low back pain from the spasticity make it near impossible.
Summer – home projects I used to enjoy in the yard (4 acres) I can no longer due very easily, other than mow the grass on a rider.
I used to live in California – you are right too expensive and crowded. I am thinking maybe Santa Fe or other mountain-town some day. I have work, still, and my 91 year old mom to care for in the same town, and my partner’s parents are in NYC, and in their 70s, so it my be some time until I get to consider living in a high desert mountain town. But I can dream of milder winters.
John, thanks so much for writing. I couldn’t help the jab at New Hampshire, which is merely the 2nd most wooded state in the country, LOL. I’m getting a lot of positive feedback about New Mexico, the higher elevations in Arizona, the Pacific Northwest, and higher elevations in the mid Atlantic. Of course, there is always Hawaii. But most of this is merely an exercise in imagining living in other places. Picking up and relocating is expensive, and requires us to build new networks of friends, neighbors, and medical professionals. It’s not impossible, but it is daunting. Take care.
Great topic Mitch. I was born and raised in CT, did college in MA, lived for 4 yrs. in NH, then spent 3 yrs. in San Diego, 1 year in Little Rock, 4 yrs. in SW Virginia and 13 yrs. In Virginia Beach before settling on the Outer Banks of NC in 2008. Then 6 yrs. ago hubby and I decided to buy a second home on a whim on the east coast of FL and become snowbirds. WHAT WERE WE THINKING? I can handle the heat but not the humidity and both locations have plenty of humidity (not to mention hurricane risk). Uggh. Anything above 50% humidity has me hiding in the house. I fantasize about living in Maine or back in NH (which has 5 seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter, Mud and Spring) but hubby will not even visit New England in the winter (I can’t blame him – he was born in Berlin, NH) but he has agreed to think about the Asheville, NC area. Little snow for him, less humidity for me, mountains for us both and only 8 hrs. from OBX.
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