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When neighbors begin arriving for a spring party, their hostess slips upstairs to awaken her husband from a nap. He is partway out of bed, flailing his right arm in the air, while his left side is not moving. She bends down to hear him mumble through drooping lips, "I can't get up." As an ambulance rushes him to the hospital, this busy attorney and his wife of more than forty years have no idea they are boarding a roller coaster of medical crises, setbacks, hard decisions, disability, and living apart that will end in his death nearly three years later, on their forty-fifth wedding anniversary. The Defense Rests is a poignant memoir by a loving widow. It is a practical guide to the complexities of the medical system, the challenges of chronic illness and disability, the joy and frustration of trying to help suffering people, and the depths of grief. Above all, it is a beautifully written love story that will draw you in until the final page and bring you to laughter and tears many times. This book will change the way you relate to people going through hard times. From the moment of her husband Harvey's stroke, Kathryn Cosper found herself in the unwelcome role of caregiver as their life seemed to be spinning out of control. In her own honest and compelling words, she tells of the hardships they faced and the ways they found to handle them. She describes the pain of seeing her larger-than-life husband become increasingly dependent, and the important lessons she learned from hi