Me Before You: A Novel

family, or sometimes, heartbreakingly alone.
    I wasn’t the only carer interested in these sites. There were girlfriends, asking how they could help their partners gain the confidence to go out again, husbands seeking advice on the latest medical equipment. There were advertisements for wheelchairs that would go on sand or off-road, clever hoists or inflatable bathing aids.
    There were codes to their discussions. I worked out that SCI was a spinal cord injury, AB the able-bodied, a UTI an infection. I saw that a C4/5 spinal injury was far more severe than a C11/12, most of whom still seemed to have use of their arms or torso. There were stories of love and loss, of partners struggling to cope with disabled spouses as well as young children. There were wives who felt guilty that they had prayed their husbands would stop beating them – and then found they never would again. There were husbands who wanted to leave disabled wives but were afraid of the reaction of their community. There was exhaustion and despair, and a lot of black humour – jokes about exploding catheter bags, other people’s well-meaning idiocy, or drunken misadventures. Falling out of chairsseemed to be a common theme. And there were threads about suicide – those who wanted to, those who
encouraged them to give themselves more time, to learn to look at their lives in a different way. I read each thread, and felt like I was getting a secret insight into the workings of Will’s brain.
    At lunchtime I left the library and went for a brief walk around town to clear my head. I treated myself to a prawn sandwich and sat on the wall watching the swans in the lake below the castle. It was warm enough for me to take off my jacket, and I let my face tilt towards the sun. There was something curiously restful about watching the rest of the world getting on with its business. After spending all morning stuck in the world of the confined, just being able to walk out and eat my lunch in the sun felt like a freedom.
    When I had finished, I walked back to the library, reclaimed my computer terminal. And I took a breath and typed a message.
Hi – I am the friend/carer of a 35 yo C5/6 quadriplegic. He was very successful and dynamic in his former life and is having trouble adjusting to his new one. In fact, I know that he does not want to live, and I am trying to think of ways of changing his mind. Please could anyone tell me how I could do this? Any ideas for things he might enjoy, or ways I could get him to think differently? All advice gratefully received.
    I called myself Busy Bee. Then I sat back in my chair, chewed at my thumbnail for a bit, and finally pressed ‘Send’
.
    When I sat down at the terminal the next morning, I had fourteen answers. I logged into the chat room, and blinkedas I saw the list of names, the responses which had come from people worldwide, throughout the day and night. The first one said:
Dear Busy Bee,
    Welcome to our board. I’m sure your friend will gain a lot of comfort from having someone looking out for him.
    I’m not so sure about that, I thought.
Most of us on here have hit a definite hump at some point in our lives. It may be that your friend has hit his. Don’t let him push you away. Stay positive. And remind him that it is not his place to decide both when we enter and depart this world, but that of the Lord. He decided to change your friend’s life, in His own wisdom and there may be a lesson in it that He –
    I scanned down to the next one.
Dear Bee,
    There is no way around it, being a quad can suck. If your guy was a bit of a player too, then he is going to find it extra hard. These are the things that helped me. A lot of company, even when I didn’t feel like it. Good food. Good docs. Good meds, depression meds when necessary. You didn’t say where you were based, but if you can get him talking to others in the SCI community it may help. I was pretty reluctant at first (I think some part of me didn’t want to admit I was actually a quad) but it does help to know you’re not alone out there.
    Oh, and DON’T let him watch any films like
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
. Major downer!
    Let us know how you get on.
    All best,
    Ritchie
    I looked up
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
. ‘The story of a man who suffers a paralysing stroke, and his attempts to communicate with the outside world,’ it said. I wrote the title down on my pad, uncertain whether I was doing so to make sure Will avoided it, or so I