Origami: Finding Home by Andrew Wang

The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members. Coretta Scott King

It is August now, which means we are well past the halfway point of 2025. It’s been almost 9 months since I’ve come here to share anecdotes and updates from our lives. Much has happened, and while most of it has been good, the biggest development is that we did not move to Savannah GA. That was left field, I know!

For the past two summers we’ve contemplated relocating. We knew it was a strong moment in time for the sale of a house in New England, but the same cannot be said for a home purchase here. We liked the idea of making a pivot and as much as we would have loved the chance to move back West, after investigating Flagstaff AZ, Bend OR, Tucson and Phoenix AZ and Reno NV, we realized the financial gains to be found in the Southeast were more appealing. We listed our house for sale last winter without telling a soul, and then headed on a road trip to investigate storied Savannah GA. We found a special real estate agent while there and absolutely loved the area. Upon our return home, we had an offer on our New Hampshire house! It was go time.

We may never know if it was cold feet or common sense, but in this political climate of government budgeting scrutiny, I was worried by the prospect of reapplying for Sasha’s Medicaid. This health insurance that I am so thankful for is the backbone to navigating Sasha’s complex medical care.  What if her application in Georgia was denied? Then came the discussion of school options for Nika. We quickly learned how complex the public school system is in many parts of the south.  You are not necessarily guaranteed placement in your neighborhood school. Then of course came the sub-tropical climate. While Mike felt ready for a new adventure as did I, he particularly struggles with heat and humidity similar to the way that I struggle with gloomy winters. The weight I felt while reviewing this trifecta of cons made me pause. Yet with our home sale now under contract, if we were to pivot, it needed to be quick.

Over the past two years I’ve also been inquiring about in home nursing care at Sasha’s annual physicals. I was informed each time that while we do qualify for this service, our location in northern NH made staffing a challenge. Typically residing near one of the state’s larger hospitals made all the difference. I recalled this conversation to Mike as we shifted our home search back in state, and it soon dictated the radius for our research.

Beautiful Savannah, GA

So, at the end of April we found ourselves buying a home in Bow NH. We now live next to Concord, our state’s capitol city, and remain geographically just close enough for Nika to continue at her beloved preschool in central NH. Sasha meanwhile has obtained nursing care in the home 3 days per week. This has been tremendously helpful in offering respite from Sasha’s physical care, which has become arduous in recent months. Trunk strength has changed significantly for Sasha this year, and I am thankful for the days of rest from the increasingly physical tasks of dressing, repositioning, transferring and diapering.  

While I haven’t been writing here for several months, I want to share that I have been writing in a different space. Last month I started my first freelance position when I became a Blogger in Residence at Courageous Parents Network! CPN is a non-profit based outside of Boston MA offering vast online resources to both families and clinicians of individuals with complex medical conditions. This remarkable website aides in navigating the medical care for virtually all diseases effecting children and adolescents throughout the disease trajectory. An advocate for palliative care and champion in highlighting their services, CPN has been instrumental and intentional in clarifying misnomers between palliative care and hospice. Palliative care is supportive and is not care for end of life. CPN’s growth over the past 10 years has brought them to the forefront in the resource literature provided to families at numerous hospitals throughout New England and beyond.

My first post with CPN was published last month and can be found at this link: https://bit.ly/46lzZ7e. Future posts are coming soon as I will continue to write for CPN throughout this year and into 2026. Please follow them on social media if you haven’t already for the opportunity to peruse all of their resources.  (https://courageousparentsnetwork.org/) There is so much offered at CPN; intimate audio and video interviews with families navigating challenging decisions, clinicians sharing insights and pathways to help map specific topics of care, audio libraries, blogs by various writers and so much more. These tools can be helpful to not only a family navigating a complex medical journey, but to friends and families wondering how to be helpful or simply present within their loved ones world.

Additional areas of life have thrived in 2025 as well. I joined a community choir which performs three concerts per semester and culminated with the opportunity to sing with the New Hampshire Music Festival last month. Sasha had the unplanned, unparalleled opportunity to summit Mt. Washington once again this year when an athlete had to drop away from the event at the last minute. Also in July Sasha enjoyed a remarkable summer camp experience along with celebrating her 27th birthday! She is settling into her new home with ease, as she always seems to do, and we all are enjoying being closer to family and friends located in the southern part of the state, as well as being closer to so many medical services. We are excited to be closer to airports, the ocean, city shopping (I’m talking about you Trader Joe’s!) and yet to still have some woods to call our own and a quiet street for walks with the girls. We’re planning another winter road trip down south next year, and maybe we can say hello to our old real estate agent again along the way, but for now, we are happy to call this place home.

Leaving Savannah