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These are some things to consider if you are contemplating a move.

1. Review all of the positives of where you live now. What characteristics of “how” you live where you are would you like to take along with you?

2. Discuss the positives of the move emotionally as well as pragmatically for both partners and the entire family.

3 Discuss the negatives, the fears. Even if your fears seem unreasonable or immature, they are still your fears. By raising them now, you will be better prepared for conflicts that arise later.

You will forget something when you move. No matter how careful you are, all moves get messed up somehow. Don’t blame yourself or your partner. Don’t mix the move with an attempt to purge all of your “stuff.” Moving is difficult enough, so don’t make the move a complete reappraisal of your marital collection of “things.” If you do that now, when you are rushed, you may throw out something you wished you hadn’t, and that will make the adjustment to moving just that much more difficult.

6 Try to see the move as a change and not a dumping of a prior life. Homes are emotional feelings, not wood and brick buildings. Talk about the feelings.

7 Don’t try to have sex as soon as you move in. “We tried to christen the new bedroom after a day of stacking, moving, and cleaning. It didn’t work. We should have just held each other and slept.” This report from one of the husbands is good advice and in keeping with the warning never to force or test marital sex. If you are thinking of having sex as a test or for any reason other than joy and intimacy and closeness, don’t do it.

8. Assess together what the move does to your support systems. Moves can come to mean new beginnings or cause rehashing of unresolved issues. Attend beforehand to the emotional dimensions of moving and there will be fewer, but still many, problems. As bad as it may seem, this move most likely is only practice. You will probably move again in a few years.

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Cancer can almost never be cured by surgery once it has spread through the bloodstream. Before agreeing to surgery aimed at curing you, make sure that the likely spots for blood-borne secondary deposits have been checked. Different cancers tend to spread to different organs. For each type there is a typical pattern which your doctor should know. The likely spots should be checked by taking a history of your symptoms, examining you and arranging tests such as blood tests, X-rays and scans. For example, if your cancer tends to spread to the lung, at the very least your doctor should ask you directly whether you have a cough with or without blood in the sputum, shortness of breath or chest pain. Whether or not you have these symptoms, your lungs should be examined and you should have a plain chest X-ray. Sometimes, the search should be more thorough than this, especially if very extensive surgery is planned with the sole aim of curing you. I am referring here to surgery that is so drastic that, if you are not cured, you stand to gain absolutely nothing or even to be worse off.

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