Head lice. Ugh. Been there, done that. Twice. The first time: The school sent home instructions to check our kids for lice because they were going around. Sure enough, after searching and searching my husband found one. One is enough to start the purge.

As Sid Halligan slipped deeper and deeper into Alzheimer's disease, his wife Ginny realized that if she wasn't careful, she might lose her own identity. He was 73 when they got the diagnosis, and 82 when he died last January. Until the last five months of his life, which he spent in a nursing home, Ginny took care of her husband at home.