- Dominique McShain-Suson, battling terminal cancer, seeks a single-storey home for easier mobility.
- She needs a home with accessible features and a private backyard for her therapy dogs.
- Dream Days and New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty are assisting in the search and move.
A young South Island woman is looking for a home that can bring her comfort as she battles terminal cancer.
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Dominique McShain-Suson was told she had colorectal cancer, spreading to her lungs and liver, in April this year, two weeks before her 21st birthday.
Since the shock diagnosis, she has completed 14 punishing rounds of chemotherapy, which have left her exhausted and unable to move.
“Most people get symptoms and they get told they are stage two or three. I jumped from stage zero to stage four and terminal," she told OneRoof.
McShain-Suson is determined to make a difference in the time she has left after her cancer diagnosis. Photo / Lavender Turner Photography
McShain-Suson said the Christchurch house she shares with her partner - a two-storey townhouse with the bedrooms and the bathroom on the upper floor - was proving too much for her body.
“I would often feel like I was trapped. I would spend days upstairs because I knew if I came down [to the lounge] and needed to go to the toilet, I would not feel good enough [to climb the stairs]," she said.
“After chemo, my partner will have to carry me up the stairs or mum will have to help me move my legs because I don’t have the energy to do it.”
McShain-Suson, who moved to Christchurch from Dunedin two years ago to study psychology at the University of Canterbury, is now searching for a single-storey home.
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She desperately wants a private backyard where she can sit with her two dogs – a black Pomeranian called Ivy and a golden retriever therapy dog named Kelly.
“I’m not having much quality of life here honestly, I just need somewhere I can walk on flat and not struggle to move around. I just really want it to feel peaceful,” she told OneRoof.
She is also looking for accessible bathrooms and a nice bath to soak in. “I would really like my room to feel like a sanctuary so if I am in there for days it doesn’t feel dark or gloomy or anything.”
McShain-Suson’s mother, Jacinda Baker, who bought McShain-Suson’s current home two years ago, still lives in Dunedin, but has found herself spending most of her time in Christchurch caring for her daughter. McShain-Suson's husband Sean has also recently moved into the Broomfield townhouse.
Baker said she was happy for her daughter to have the main room and ensuite and all she needed was a bedroom. An extra living space would be ideal, she said, but she was even “happy with chairs in a garage”.
McShain-Suson says her chemotherapy sessions leaves her exhausted. Photo / Supplied
The pair are open-minded about the location and would consider anything within a 20-minute commute to Christchurch Hospital in Christchurch central and Nurse Maude Hospice in St Albans.
They are combining their savings, with McShain-Suson even digging into the funds raised via her Giveallitle page, to help buy the new home and were ideally hoping to find something in the mid- to high-$600,000s.
However, Baker said it was important that they kept some rainy-day money aside in case McShain-Suson needed medical treatment overseas.
They began house hunting a month ago and while they found one house they liked, they had missed out because of price.
McShain-Suson is hopeful there will be more properties coming to market next month, which is when they are also planning to list their current home with New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty.
Dream Days, which helps create unforgettable memories for young people with a serious illness or disability, has also come on board to help.
Lifetime general manager of operations Tina Evans said it was definitely the most unusual request they had ever had, but they were happy to make it happen.
“When we heard Dominique’s story, we knew this was an opportunity for Dream Days to go above and beyond. For Dominique and her mum, the dream was about creating a memory that would last a lifetime – and were in a unique position to be able to deliver that.”
More than 30 team members are helping the family prepare the townhouse for sale, and are coordinating the move, to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible. They have also set the family up with a real estate agent.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Elizabeth Costley said she and colleague Emma King were working closely with the family to find the perfect property.
She said they might have to make a couple of compromises, but that was relatively normal. “It’s quite hard to find absolutely everything you want in a home.”
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