My Journey with MS and Other Ailments part 6 – House Stories

In my last installment I was still able to walk some, still able to drive, still able to get from the front of the van to the back into my chair and still able to work. I could still do a few tasks around the house and use some of my power tools (even though Janette was very nervous about the power tools). We decided to find a house that was more suited to my future prognosis and then sell our Alburnett house afterwards. To me this was terrifying having 2 mortgages at the same time but it seemed like the only way to proceed.

So we started looking. We started looking at houses north of Boysen Road and west of C Avenue. There was also a condo addition in that area and we looked at some of those. What we found in the newer houses in that area that they would still need significant modifications mainly in the bathrooms. We Looked at some condos and found one that would probably have worked but it was 2 bedrooms upstairs and unfinished basement. It was right on the top edge of our budget and since the basement wasn’t finished it was really over our budget to get 3 bedrooms. There were some condos south of 74 Street in that area but they were all a little too small. There was a new edition called the Crescent addition. We considered having one built that would have handicap features already. The condo would’ve worked but the garage was the problem. The widest we could get was 20 feet. With ramp van that we knew I would eventually need this would essentially be only one stall garage. We asked if they had an option to increase the size of the garage but it would still stay in 20 feet wide. No help there.

Then we started looking outside our target zone at older houses still staying on the northeast side. We looked in Bowman Woods, Northwood Knolls and the area around Mount Mercy College. Without going into great detail we could not find a good combination of price, modifications required and garage size. We found some really neat houses but they were just too much for us to handle. I was pretty limited on what I could do so we had to take that into consideration.

Our realtor, Kris Watkins, was great. We’d set up a showing with her. She and Janette would set up the portable ramps that we had so I could get into the house since very few had ramps built in. They got to be very good working as a team! If the house seemed like a possibility they would help me down to the basement and backup. Kris finally suggested we looked outside the northeast side, to the southeast side. We reluctantly agreed and started considering some houses outside our “zone”.

About this time we found a house in Northwood Knolls that had handicap modifications. It had a finished basement so we could have dedicated one of the upstairs bedrooms as a new bathroom for me and still have 3 bedroom house. The garage would’ve worked and it has a nice ramp going up into the house. It had a huge room on the back that would’ve done well for family gatherings. The price allowed all these modifications and still stay within our budget.

At the same time Janette noticed an open house on the southeast side but it was so close to the northeast side. It was off 40^th St., Drive. It was about a block off of 1^st Avenue and we went and looked at. The house and had an owner that has lived there for many years but had moved out a year or 2 earlier. A construction guy, Deron, had purchased it and redone everything. He was flipping the house. We looked at it and found if it had a bathroom for me it would probably work. Working with the 2 realtors and Deron we came up with a plan to add a bathroom in the master bedroom. His price was attractive and everything together within our budget. It was a difficult decision between the house we found in Northwood Knolls and this one. This one in is in the Glenwood edition. Since everything was done except a couple of ramps we chose the Glenwood house that we are currently in.

Yardwork and house maintenance have been burdens to Janette and our sons but we have managed so far. Sometimes we think we would’ve been much better off with the condo but really there were none that worked for us without going $20-$30,000 over budget. We really enjoy this neighborhood and we are close to so many things including Janette’s work.

This latest installment brings us close to our current situation. There’s still a little more and I will follow up later as I have strength to do it. God bless all of you for caring about us.