As she laid in bed trying desperately to sleep, Katie Kim of Fort Lee was in such piercing pain that her husband injected her with three shots of morphine during the course of the night because the fentanyl patch wasn’t strong enough.

She was ready to end her life with the help of her doctor under New Jersey’s new aid-in-dying law. She can’t because a doctor successfully challenged the law earlier this month, placing the right to die in legal limbo.

People with Multiple System Atrophy, an incurable neurological disorder that attacks the lungs and muscles, can expect to live seven to nine years. At age 59, Kim is entering the eighth year of the disease, her husband, Freddy Kalles said.

Bedridden and reliant on an oxygen tank and a tracheostomy tube, Kim tells Kalles every day — several times a day in the halting whisper her partially paralyzed vocal cords allow — she wants the suffering to stop, he said.

“Every day I tell her I love her. Every day Katie asks me to help her die,” Kalles said in an interview in their home Thursday. “She begs me."

Kalles said he and Kim knew Gov. Phil Murphy had signed the "Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act” in April, and that it would take effect Aug. 1. He said her doctor knows Kim wanted to use the law as soon as possible, and promised she would write a prescription after the mandated 15-day waiting period.

The couple was devastated when State Superior Judge Paul Innes, sitting in Mercer County, imposed a temporary restraining order Aug. 14 that blocked doctors and pharmacists from complying with any patient’s wishes to die.

Yosef Glassman, an Orthodox Jewish physician in Bergen County, is challenging the law because he said it violated his religious beliefs and oath as a doctor, his attorney, E. David Smith said. Even though participation in the law is voluntary, physicians are required to transfer the medical file to another doctor who will honor the patient’s wishes, and Glassman wants no part of it, Smith said.

“Although they may feel desperate,” Smith said of patients who may consider using the law, “every single person’s life is worth living until the last breath.”

Innes granted the restraining order on technical grounds, deciding the Murphy administration had failed to adopt rules guiding pharmacists and physicians through this “sea change” in medical practice.

The state appealed the restraining order to the state Appellate court. A ruling is imminent, and no matter the outcome, an appeal to the state Supreme Court is expected. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s request to take the case directly and bypass the appeals court.

“What I don’t understand is why (Glassman), this human being, is doing this. He is just a man. He is not God," Kalles said. “I don’t understand why his beliefs are now ruling the population of the state of New Jersey. What makes him so special?”

Katie Kim, a pharmacist on her boat in Islamorada, Florida in 2011. Kim would not be diagnosed with an incurable neuromuscular disorder, MSA, until 2014.

Kim suggested they move last year to a state where aid in dying was legal, Kalles said. He discouraged it. Her doctors are here.

Before Kim’s decline, Kalles admits he was not an aid in dying law supporter, and never gave the issue much thought before Kim got sick. As his wife’s caregiver, he understands it’s not about what he wants.

“I was never in favor of her going down this road — this path. But after watching the pain that she is going through and the grimacing in pain at night for hours, I found myself being selfish. I love holding Katie’s hand and looking into her eyes every day. But I hate seeing what she is going through and I promised her I would help her with this,” Kalles said.

Inside their high-rise apartment, the walls are adorned with Kim’s landscape and still life paintings and photographs from their vacations throughout their 12-year relationship. Some of their trips include her native South Korea three times, Israel and before her decline two years ago, a 2-1/2 week trip to Italy and France.

“We never had a bucket list. We just said, let’s just do it because you never know when you can’t,” Kalles said.

They lived in the Florida Keys but returned to New Jersey after she was diagnosed in 2014 — the same year they got married. She quit her job as a pharmacist the following year, he said.

Kalles, a business development expert, works from home, where Kim is receiving hospice care during the week. He seldom leaves the apartment, aside to pick up food and medical supplies, he said. He doesn’t complain.

“No matter how sick she is, she still looks beautiful,” he said.

They don’t know how much time she has left, and whether the law will be of use to them should the state prevail in court and the court reverse the restraining order.

Freddy Kalles with his wife Katie Kim at their home in Fort Lee. Kim has been suffering from a progressive, terminal disease called Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) since 2011. August 22, 2019 Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

“She knows that she wants to die in dignity. She wants to live her last days knowing it will be peaceful, not suddenly in pain,” Kalles said. "Is that too much to ask?”

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.