Free food, great insurance, utility credits & subsidized rent. I have a feeling he had more disposable income every month then I do. He bragged about how they were better off not working.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to respond. First, I truly appreciate the condolences that some of you have expressed toward me with the death of my husband. However, it truly saddens me when I read so many comments full of hate. Calling his death a suicide, saying that he deserved every bit of pain and injury he sustained, that it was entirely his fault that he was on disability.
Comments like the one I quoted. Sorry, we had what? Free food? Ok, we received a monthly food stamp allowance that totaled $103. Hmm, that was quite a bit of free food. Actually, it allowed us to get food from the dollar store near us, and the produce and fruit that we purchased was usually good to use as long as it was within that day or the day after. It wasn't a great deal of free food, but it was very helpful. And this was after we had originally been receiving about $160. For some reason, we lost about $60, while not increasing our income one iota. But here, lets get to the next point.
The great insurance. Ok, heres the deal with that. Due to Kirk ending up hospitalized, we found out that the state would help us with the MONTHLY Medicare Part B, as long as I didn't work. At all. I was his nurse for over four years, with no support of any kind. I read over some of the previous old posts where I had posted, 2 years ago. That was right before his first hospitalization, where I gave up on treating him and sent him by ambulance. Barely saved his leg that time (which, btw, was not good enough, he lost the leg about six months later). So he gets Part B, and qualifies for extra help with Part D as well (medication section). So he finally starts getting the diabetic medication (which so many of you doubted he needed, because of COURSE there was no way he wouldn't have gotten insulin or other diabetic medication, even if he couldn't afford the doctor visits to GET those scripts). He also starts getting some minimal support for other issues, including home health. Home health has a problem dealing with roommate, due to an issue with proper bathing by our roommate (odor build-up that helped drive away the home health), and they couldn't handle the bed bugs. Again, something that many on the forums doubted we actually had. Well, those issues meant that Kirk ended up hospitalized again, this time losing one leg due to total body failure from a massive bone infection. Long story short, he spent approximately 45 days in one medical setting, stayed home for about... six months, then spent another 45 days in another hospital recovering from losing a leg. Six months later, back in the hospital, and offered the choice of another leg amputation, or trying an extreme surgery to maybe save the leg and foot. He chose the surgery, and spent almost ten months in medical facilities, with me visiting him almost daily.
He had just come home, and was home for less than two months, when he died. He had not qualified for Medicaid previously, unless he was in a medical facility for 30 days or more. They explained that it was because he made too much with his Medicare, and was considered a single person household. I was not part of that household when medical was being evaluated, because I didn't make enough to contribute to his household (had to be $770 monthly). However, this last stint in the medical facilities meant that he was looked at as a candidate for a program with a Medicaid waiver. His income was low enough, and his situation was considered bad enough, that he qualified for the Medicaid waiver. This would mean that he would qualify for services, such as free doctors, medication, rides, specialists, etc, that he previously didn't qualify for. He just had to go through the approval process. Which usually takes about 45 days. Guess how many days he was out of the medical facility. Well, long enough that he was informed he was approved, and it would take approximately 72 hours for the approval to post. Eight days later, he was dead.
Oh, but wait, there were other freebies... According to RobJohnson, anyway. What was it? Oh yeah, utility credits & subsidized rent. Well, lets go over that. We probably qualified for power assistance, a friend of ours did, and he made more and had a smaller household. However, I was able to handle the power bills, as long as we were careful, so I never actually followed through on getting that application process completed. And I have no idea if we qualified for housing, because I never filled out an application for that either. Now, I will admit, once Kirk was approved for the Medicaid, I figured it'd be fairly easy to get us on the housing list, and summer does run our power bill higher. However, spreading out the charges by doing the Equal Month payment setup makes it fairly easy to handle, if I'm judicious. So, was there something else that was supposed to be free? Don't see anything further on the list given by RobJohnson, but I'm sure he has a list that he refers to whenever it becomes handy. Like, when bashing a widow and her dead husband.
Reading the earlier posts, where people seem to think they were being respectful of a dead man and his widow, I really have to question just how you view respect. Making fun of the fact that someone is getting cremated, and thinking that comments about how it's possible he could set fire to the crematorium? How is that respectful of the dead? I don't know how you are treated on DU, but I have NEVER, ever said anything disrespectful to any of you. I've had you doubt whether I have my own opinions, my own voice, and my own comments/posts. I have never responded in kind to you, doubting whether you were saying what you feel.
Telling others that my husband committed suicide, simply because he took a few additional pills to relieve his pain? You have no idea of the story behind those pills, or the story behind the last two months of his life. Hell, you honestly don't understand how it has been for us for the past twelve years that I've had with this man, this obese man who dealt with the situation he had to deal with. We had only a very, VERY short period of time where he lived a normal life, and even from the beginning, he was having health problems. Hell, a month after we started talking, he ended up almost cancelling his trip to see/meet me, because he had issues with his leg. He was terrified that I would want nothing to do with him, because he felt that his medical problems would run me off. They didn't, and throughout the remainder of his life, as short as it was, I loved and cared for him, and simply wanted him to be able to live life to the fullest.
The really sad thing is, he had just gotten the approval. He went to see a pain doctor, as well as a primary doctor, two days before he died. He had to make a one month pain script last almost two months, but damnit, when he saw the new pain doctors, they agreed that he needed serious help. He was going to be seeing therapists, specialists, his primary doctor, everyone and anyone that could help improve his situation and maybe even help him live a somewhat normal life. I got his pain script filled the day before he died, and was aware, in the back of my mind, that he had been having more problems with not breathing while sleeping. I didn't think much of it, because it was something we were working on, and had been a long term issue. He was used to waking up if he stopped breathing. So, when I came home with the new pain pills, he still had a few left from that one month script. He took the last few pills, because he had been in so much pain for so long, he just wanted a little relief. I helped him to bed a little later, and he was in a good mood, feeling relatively pain free and happy.
I ended up at the computer, kinda playing a game, and sorta watching tv. I was tired, I ended up dozing. I might have even woken up when he stopped breathing, because he was relatively loud due to snoring from the sleep apnea. But when I finally woke up, and realized he was too quiet, there was nothing 911 or I could do. I called 911 around 8am, the coroners paperwork gives a projected time of death of 4:25am. My husband, my heart, my love, he died and there was nothing I could do for him.
And all I hear from you folks here is hateful and spiteful. Yes, there are a few voices out there that say that they hope my life improves without him. That's not possible. Yes, I can now look for work and get off assistance, possibly. Yes, I might be able to improve my situation without him. That doesn't mean that my life will ever be the same without him. We had so many plans, we were looking at a future that we thought would be so much better. But now I have to live, knowing that there are judgemental people out there that will make fun of a man simply because he wasn't able to meet their expectations of what they thought he should have been able to do.
I don't know. I don't think that you can ever change. My expectations of the people here on this forum... well, what do you care. Not like you really ever respected me or Kirk. I hope that you can learn, but somehow I doubt it. So many of you were speaking of one idea, with many voices. And you talk so bad about DU doing the same thing. I don't know, maybe DU is just as bad. If so, I feel pity for all of you.
