JAKE'S FEET became swollen. It was hard for him to move. Lacey often heard him moaning. Sometimes she found feces on the bathroom floor. She never said a word, just cleaned it up, knowing that her husband must be embarrassed at his lack of control.

She brought him food, but his hands shook so badly he could hardly spoon it in. She offered to help. He refused. One morning, in August, she heard him scream. Rushing into the living room she found Jake lying on the floor. He whispered, "I can't get up. Call an ambulance. I think I'm dying."

Terrified, she called. Within minutes they arrived, examined Jake, and wheeled him out to the ambulance. "We'll take him to RVH. You should go in your own car, ma'am." And then Jake was gone. Foreboding rose within her as, shaking from head to toe, she prepared to go to the hospital. She knew Jake would never set foot in his lovely lake house again.

At the hospital, she waited for a long time before being ushered into Jake's room. A doctor explained that Jake's thighbone had split in two, causing the fall; that he was bed-ridden.

A nurse told her he was heavily sedated, but that she could stay if she wanted to. She sat by the bed, holding one hand in hers for a long time, as Jake drifted in and out of sleep. He felt terribly cold. This is it then, the end, really, even if it doesn't happen today. But it wasn't over for Jake. He lingered for another interminable month. Lacey visited every day and listened as he ranted about being hoisted naked in straps into a bathtub. "I hate it. I tell them not to do it but they don't listen to me. I'm not a person anymore - just a thing that has to be washed." And she watched in horror as he slipped in and out of consciousness, sometimes ranting and shouting at people from his past or creatures that had come to attack him.