HEARING - U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

8
ments for our retirement. I might get a little bit emotional over
this because I have just been out of the hospital a short time where
I have had to have surgery.
We had to sell our home and move into a small apartment. And
our income-we had to divest of the investments for living expenses
monthly. My husband receives $448 per month Social Security,
and I, $190, because wife working for husband at that timemaybe
this law has been changed since then.
Our medical bills alone-I would like to correct myself, sir-our
drug bills, our pharmaceutical bills alone for the last 5 years have
totalled-I called the pharmacy for the total-it is $5,720.
My husband has figured out that 30 percent of our income goes
out for medical expenses that we are not reimbursed for by Medicare
or our supplemental medical insurance. Our supplemental
policy stated that my husband, after spending 3 days in the hospital,
would qualify for nursing home care. Well, now, in little print,
I have had four legal people look at this, and they have said, "It is
very ambiguous. We cannot answer that."
However, I have contacted one of the agents, and they are
coming next week to see if we really do. In the meantime, I got a
bill last Tuesday-oh, I am missing a very important point here,
Senators.
I have been taking care of my husband all this time, and he has
been in need of 24-hour care, because he also developed an injury
in his neck where the sixth and seventh vertebrae, the disc has
slipped, and the vertebrae have pushed the nerves out, which sends
terrific pain down the neck and down the arm. He was on 16 aspirin,
8 extra-strength Tylenol plus codeine. Well, that can ruin anybody's
stomach within 4 days.
He was taken into the Beaver Dam Hospital, and they said,
"There is not anything much we can do." But some nurse spoke up
and said, "Let us try TENS, Doctor. What do you think?"
TENS is an abbreviation for transcutaneous electro-nerve stimulation.
You are hooked up just like in telemetry, if you have seen
anybody in cardiac care, and a little instrument hangs in front of
you on your garment, and that has a battery in it. It is very similar
to a stun gun. The patient turns the little wheels until they can
feel a shock going through their body. This shock sends a message
to the brain to pull out a hormone which is stronger than morphine.
It is actually a very wonderful invention. Some people can
only tolerate it for an hour to 2 hours. My husband is tolerating it
for 24 hours.
I was sent home after 3 days in the hospital with him all wired
up as such. Nobody instructed me how to handle this, and at 2
o clock in the morning the thing went haywire and almost bounced
him out of bed. And I had to get out an instruction book and go
through it and find out what I do next at 2 o'clock in the morning.
I managed that. So he is all hooked up with this.
Well, this went on for 6 weeks, needless to say, day and night.
And I collapsed, and I was taken by emergency to Saint Mary's
Hospital in Madison, where I had to have surgery. Well, what to do
with my husband?
My husband then was sent to Clearview, a nursing health care
facility. And they tell me that he does not qualify for Medicare be-