# Why I moved to Mexico to care for my dying partner

> A California real estate agent relocated to Puerto Vallarta to build options for aging. When her former partner's health collapsed, those options became everything.
- Title: Why I moved to Mexico to care for my dying partner · Fortune
- Summary: A California real estate agent relocated to Puerto Vallarta to build options for aging. When her former partner's health collapsed, those options became…
- Keywords: puerto vallarta, mexico, retirement planning, healthcare abroad, caregiving, dementia, aging, real estate, moved, care, dying, partner
- Source: Fortune — https://fortune.com/2026/10/25/real-estate-agent-why-i-moved-from-california-to-mexico
- Author: Lance B. Fulford
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: puerto vallarta, mexico, retirement planning, healthcare abroad, caregiving, dementia, aging, real estate
## A partner's decline prompts a move
After 38 years together, the author's former partner Sanders was showing dementia symptoms. Watching his aging parents' care needs years earlier, she wondered what Sandy might need ahead.
## Rethinking life after three decades in real estate
After more than thirty decades in California real estate, the author wanted to change how she lived and worked. She wasn't ready to retire but needed different variables for her future.
## Puerto Vallarta becomes the new home base
She had visited Puerto Vallarta for nearly twenty-five years. She decided to establish a home base there, hoping it would give her more choices as she and Sandy aged.
## The math of living abroad
In San Francisco, she rented a two-bedroom apartment for three thousand eight hundred dollars a month. In Puerto Vallarta, she found a much larger four-bedroom home with a pool for approximately three thousand dollars.
## Sandy arrives and gets rapid care
She brought Sandy to Puerto Vallarta after he had waited months for specialist evaluations in California.Through a medical concierge, a neurologist appointment was arranged within ten days.
## A fall begins the crisis
Sandy became disoriented while out alone one evening and fell and hit his head. Medical examinations initially revealed no major injury, but his condition deteriorated. He later fell in the bathroom unable to get up.
## Emergency surgery and round-the-clock care
A urologist discovered an obstruction involving a medical device from earlier prostate cancer treatment. Sandy underwent emergency surgery and spent three days in a private hospital. The author arranged round-the-clock nursing at home.
## The cost of care in Mexico
Hospital treatment and surgery cost approximately eight thousand dollars. Nursing assistance, including eight days of continuous home care, totaled about seven thousand dollars. Physician visits and medication added another one thousand dollars.
## Family gathers as Sandy declines
The author called Sandy's sister and their daughter Anna, who traveled from Madrid.Anna arrived two days before Sandy died.
## Building options before they become urgent
The author thought she was building options for a distant future.Sandy's illness showed her how urgently those options might be needed.

> Sandy taught me how urgently we may need them. And why we should begin building them before we do.
## Key takeaway

A real estate agent moved to Mexico to prepare for future caregiving needs and found that proximity to healthcare, community and flexibility proved essential when her former partner's dementia and medical crisis arrived unexpectedly.