Tamara Hilliard learned in November 2017 that her husband, then 64, had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal disease of the nervous system.
“I’ve been grieving since we got the diagnosis,” says Hilliard of Fort Worth, Texas. “For a long time, I’ve been sad, knowing that he was going to suffer, that he was going to die.”
Her husband, Jim, was an orthopedic surgeon and a former college football player for the University of Texas. His once hulking body soon began to deteriorate. He was able to walk through 2018, although he transitioned to a walker and eventually a motorized chair. “From Christmas 2019 on, he was completely dependent on me,” she says.
