My physician of many years decreed that I can no longer live in the condominium where I have spent the past several decades, and where I have many friends, including good friends from law school days.
As Dorothy famously said in the Wizard of Oz: There's no place like home!
But the doctor says I am not safe at home. I am not sure why this is - I heard there was a fellow there who had run into serious trouble with the law on a tax charge, but otherwise everyone, including the staff, were kind and helpful people.
True, there was no nurse on the premises but I took my meds as prescribed and sent blood pressure results to my physician as requested. But apparently this was not enough. I had to be in a congregate care "senior" facility.
This was the least objectionable alternative but it's not my home.
It is my death venue (or DV for short!)
So this move was made on April Fool's Day, 2023.
This is just as well. I know that I am dying and it will be much easier for everyone if I did so in this rather cushy venue. I think they handle death much more efficiently here.
I need to figure out what to do with my condo. Unless the kids want it do I want to be paying for two places? I may hang on for a bit, because if the situation here becomes too intolerable I may have to:
1. Find a new doctor which would 2. Let me go home.
But the move home would take a huge amount of energy that I do not know if I could summon at this point -- not to mention terribly wasteful financially.
So I might as well relax and die here - hopefully ASAP!
There is a nurse here to take your blood pressure but I have my own blood pressure machine and use it fairly frequently. I also have my pills in a little dated box and am pretty good about taking these as well
There are restaurants here but I don't like to go there, because if I sit down at a small table alone, which is my preference, invariably some caregiver tries to seat a terribly handicapped person with me. I am very sorry for these souls but honestly I cannot be comfortable with them across the table. Occasionally (when someone in the group cannot be there) I'm invited to eat at one of the little women's "cliques" (for lack of a better word). This is always interesting, but the unwritten rules of who can talk and about what subjects is sometimes confusing. I'm generally better eating alone.
Also it is hard for me to ascertain what is gluten and casein free. Sometimes the wait staff can find out but often not. So I continue buying some foods from Amazon, just as I did previously, and most of thee time I eat alone in my apartment.
Sometimes they show a movie but mostly they're not so great.
And occasionally there's some kind of entertainment. I know they try but what can I say.
As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz - There's no place like home!
I'm glad they have religious services -- Catholic, Protestant and Jewish.
I sometimes go to the Jewish ones. They are led by a lady cantor. This is quite acceptable to me. I like the hymns in the Protestant ones but the sermons are less useful for me. And no, Leonard Bernstein's Mass isn't found in the Catholic service! (But I'm glad I have it on Amazon!)
I generally use this time to humbly beg my Creator to take me ASAP.
I have a nice view of the sunrise here in my Death Venue just as I did at home. But here it is more of a ritual for me -- especially since I don't sleep well here.
(The HVAC equipment is pretty noisy - which it never was at home -- and often kicks in when I'm trying to sleep.)
But often when I see the sunrise -- even though it is not formally the time when it is said. -- I chant the Alienu.
It's an important prayer which I have posted elsewhere on this blog.
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