Moving is stressful but moving when you have MS is a nightmare

NicoleMarie1,

Welcome to a wonderful, supportive place! I'm glad you found us.

We are selling our farm and preparing to move and downsize. I understand feeling overwhelmed! I don't look forward to moving at all, but when I start dreading it, I remind myself how much simpler things will be. It has felt good to purge quite a bit of stuff I forgot I even had --all those things I'd saved for "just in case."

I hope you can keep gazing at the light at the end of the tunnel, but that you also have plenty of help.

We wish you well with your move and hope you will relish being settled in your new home. Keep us posted on how you're doing.

Thank you for the welcome! Despite tornado warning and severe rain, the move went smoothly. We are still settling in as I had my infusion the week of the move but almost done unpacking the necessities.

You're amazing! An infusion AND moving? Hurrah for you! I'm so happy things have gone well and that you're nearly done.

Hahaha thanks but If I would have been on and responded earlier this week, I would not have responded so positively. It's only in hindsight that I'm this chipper as I'm in my second full week of living here and seeing what is done do I realize that I accomplished more than it feels like I have.

I always organize and clean my house first. That way when I pack its organized. Label boxes for sure. I focus on packing one room at a time, starting with the least important things so I won't need to dig for things I need in the meantime. Believe it or not, I try to be fully unpacked within a week of moving. Can't stand living out of boxes.

I did the same thing Stacy. I had my infusion the week I moved so the unpacking was slowed down some but almost there.

I have but, no matter how you do it it is stressful. The last couple of times we had movers do it but we packed. You have to learn to step back and let others help.

Hi I do have to let you know since having MS i have not moved. I do want to let you know be careful let everyone else do the lifting. I know what you can be doing the directing person you can let everyone know where to put things. Good luck and have fun.

Hi NicoleMarie1...I'm in the process of moving for the first time since I was diagnosed 17 years ago. Its a multi-stage move which in some ways is worse but it is what I have to do.

Since I planned on down-sizing and the majority of my things were going into storage for awhile, I took the opportunity to go through everything and get rid of a lot. It was a lot of exhausting work to do all that and prepare my house to be sold. I did it a little at a time to kind of spread it out ut even with that, it was exhausting. My daughter helped a lot when she was home for a wedding. I also had a couple of friends help me out. It would have been much harder to do it all myself.

Now I'm staying with family temporarily while I look for a new place. Once I find something, I'll have the stuff in storage moved to the new place and I'll unpack the boxes as I can. I probably will get friends to help with that too as well as take lots of naps!

Good luck!

I found that while there is a lot of physical exertion to moving, the part that makes is all exhausting is the mental/emotional aspects of a move, regardless if it's a positive/negative type of move. There's no downtime on those aspects, even in sleep......this is not to say the the physical aspects are not as equally exhausting. F

You are so right NicoleMarie1! All the paperwork I've had to do for the small mortgage I will have plus all the documents I have to read and sign related to the condo I'm buying is exhausting. All that dense small print and legal mumbo-jumbo! Its also exhausting getting bids for repairs and bids for insurance and exhausting figuring out when to set up repair appointments and moving trucks etc. And in the middle of it all I'm going to visit my daughter for a week! Not to mention...figuring how I want to secure the slider doors and figuring out what exactly I can do with out permission from the Home Owners Association. And on and on and on.... I'm so looking forward to moving in and getting unpacked and organized! Because that means that I'm through with all the paperwork and phone conversations that are wiping me out now.

NicoleMarie1, moving with MS is difficult, to put it mildly. I moved from a 4-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment hundreds of miles away when I had severe MS symptoms but didn't yet know what was wrong with me. That move was difficult, and I did all of the packing myself though movers did the actual moving. I had a piano and lots of books and paintings and other things.

The next move was thousands of miles and to another apartment. By then I knew I had MS. That move was hard too, and a couple of years later I moved to a much smaller (one-room) apartment, where I stayed a year, then moved to a one-bedroom apartment in HUD housing, where I stayed for 26 years and vowed I'd never move again.

But 7 years ago I moved 150 miles away to another HUD apartment, and that time it was too much for me. Towards the end of the packing I just couldn't do it any more and paid the movers to pack up most of the kitchen on moving day. I was completely wiped out and feeling quite sick.

And by this time I had got rid of many things. The piano was sold before I moved across the country, and I got rid of all but 200 books. I did always have a cat whenever I moved but one cat wasn't so difficult to move. I was lucky and had very agreeable cats who behaved themselves.

This time I mean it when I say I'll never move again. It took me months to get settled in, and it seemed as if years passed before I felt I knew my way around this place I'm in now.

If you can afford it, pay the movers to do at least some of the packing. The problem with moving is that there's usually a deadline, and a person is tempted to stay up till all hours of the night just to meet that deadline. Let the movers do it. They do a beautiful job, much faster than anyone else could do it.

I feel like we have the same story, but I haven't moved as often as you have. After my move 7 months ago, I'm still going through boxes, but I've resolved not to get stressed about it. My goal is to go through at least 3 boxes a month (from a house to an apartment). I'll get there - eventually!!

I wish I could make goals like this Sara2000. My problem is that I get "crazed" living among boxes. With all the unpredictability MS gives, I like feeling settled as it relieve the mental stress. It fatigues me just to see boxes that need to still be unpacked......kinda like feeling full just looking at food without even eating any.

Hi NicoleMarie1 Welcome to Our MSAA Community ☺ sorry it's cause of this monster though 😞

Ugh moving. What can l say, but good luck! I have moved from 1side of the country to the other. And then some since l was 18. But NEVER with MS! So please be careful and listen to your body! Just the thought of moving makes me cringe.😨

What kind of fur babies 😊 do you have? How are they they handling the move?

When you take your brakes from moving, come back and visit us! I hope you find us a friendly and Informative and just plain nuts here! But Always Supportive!💕

Jes 🌠

~Helpful Hint~ If you put an @ in front of person of who your addressing, they will be notified. IE @ jesmcd2 *With No Spaces*

Thank you for the welcome! I have 3 domestic cats and 1 dog who is a German Shepherd. They range in ages 11yrs, 8yrs (sibling cats), 7yrs.

Hi NicoleMarie1 how is the move going? All done yet? Hope it's going smoothly for you!😊

Love the pic of your 🐕! He's adorable! I love kitties to, but we don't have anymore. And we don't plan on getting any. They would out live me😞😅

Jes🌠

We settled in, if there is such a thing, nicely thanks for checking in.

Thank you, we also have 3 cats and after 4 fur babies we probably will not get any more in the future either.

Glad to hear it NicoleMarie1 hope it wasn't to much on you!

J 🌠

Oh darlin'... will be sending you tons of positive energy!!! after MS for 28 years, I had to pack a 20 acre farm & home with NO HELP... yep, lots got left and I've just had to forget about it... Then 14 dayz before closing on the sale of my new home, they decided they did not want to sell AND the folks buying my farm could not come up with the down payment... moving from Ohio to PA was an added dimension in case I needed more... well...

I forced the sale of the home I was buying (was paying the asking price) AND put a big fat red sticker discount on my farm... talk about STRESS... Needless to say, my new home is ideal for me as a MonSter Warrior and my dream farm is simply wonderful memories...

This too will pass!!! BREATHE, RELAX when you can, and BE GRATEFUL you've got help & someone to share the work with you!

Little by little, it will all get done!!!

NicoleMarie1 I've been working on our move since January. I have cleaned everything out and the house is sold. We're building a new home about 40 minutes from where we currently live. Next week I'll begin packing. We have to live in an apartment for five weeks. I'm trying not to stress out too much but I am extremely exhausted. My mother is ill and needs me to take her to all her appointments and grocery shopping. I don't want to wish the way the summer but I'll be glad when August arrives and we're in the new place

Hi

I'm moving next week. It has been very stressful selling one house and buying another.

What I did was stretch out the packing over the past three months purging and packing three boxes a week. I did not have help for the packing. But i have tons of help for the move and unpacking because Im no good with long days or being on my feet for so long.

I also got a pod so I could take my time with loading/unloading and arranged to board my dog for a few days. I got refills of all meds last week. And most important took a few days off work next week.

You can't eliminate the stress but do your best to minimize it

Good luck

Oh my goodness - yes. I moved last year from a house that I had been renting for over 20 years. The move was so incredibly hard and stressful - not to mention the hassle that my ex-landlady put me through when we moved out. It was all I could do to keep my mind on my work and then just come home and collapse into bed at night. If you have help, that's the best way to go. We got help at the last minute which was a God-send. Imagine packing up a house full of "stuff" from the past 20 years, then moving into an apartment. Yes, I still have boxes of stuff to go through, but I'm doing it at my pace. If anyone asks you if they can help, accept it - no matter how small their participation is - even if it's just to move boxes from one room to another - or someone to help set your beds, kitchen, etc. Let them help out with the basic necessities and then you can go through other stuff when you can.

Hi @Sara2000, resolving not to get stressed about moving is a great idea. A really odd thing about my last move was that I didn't have to do any resolving. My body told me when I'd done too much--in no uncertain terms. I obviously should have stopped before it got to that point. I'm learning slowly, very slowly, to figure out when I'm about to go over the edge and set off a lot of problems.

NicoleMarie1...I responded earlier but didn't thank you for starting this thread! I'm sure I'm going to read it again and again in the coming couple of months to keep perspective.

I just had my offer on a condo accepted and was having a pity party this morning about all that I need to do and pay for in the upcoming move. (And like I always do...questioning if I did the right thing!) Reading the stories of others who had much more challenging moves than me helps me keep my head on straight.

Sounds like a nightmare. I have been trying to organize my bathroom for 3 weeks. I can only do so much and then I have to stop and rests!

Welcome,NicoleMarie1. I was diagnosed in 2010 and I had to retire in 2013 because of the disease. We have 2 adult children, but in 2015 we packed up our entire house (after getting rid of lots and lots of stuff we no longer needed) in Florida and my husband and I, with our two furbabies in the back seat of the SUV, our stuff packed (all by us--and my husband only has use of one arm because he had a stroke 5 yrs prior to my dx) in a moving van, and our other furbaby (a rescued horse) on a separate transport, headed across country to our new home in Northern Arizona. It was in fact a nightmare, but now that we are here, it was so worth it! Best of luck in your new home! Soon the packing and the moving will be a distant memory.

Welcome, NicoleMarie1! I'm happy Jesmcd2 and you tagged onto this thread today as I missed it while I was traveling. I'm happy to meet you, but goodness, reading about your move and your infusion (I assume solumedrol IV?) really made me thankful that we are settled in our home and, for the most part, all the remodeling work is completed and the stress is gone. We moved 4 years ago. My MS wasn't as active then, but I know the bathroom remodels we did the past couple of years contributed to repeated relapses. The stress did me in.

I do hope you, your husband, and your fur babies can now relax and enjoy your new home. And my heart goes out to others who commented here ( Juleigh21, Raingrrl, greaterexp, and Cocoasmom) who are currently burdened with this undertaking in one way or another. My prayer is that you all are able to weather the task without too much stress and physical setbacks.

Others have shared great advice on packing and unpacking. I'd like to share something I did once we moved. Like others here, we moved because our other place (house and yard) had become too much for me to care for. In our new home I have tried to simplify my decorating. That leaves me fewer things to dust and clean. And we have redone the front yard to make it low maintenance. I enjoy working in the garden, but I know my limitations. The back yard's transformation is next-and the last thing on our 'remodel' list.

Enjoy your new home and welcome to the MSAA family! 💕