After two failed "hiring homicides to kill oneself", women suffering from frostbite must resist living without dignity
When he was diagnosed with frostbite syndrome, 51-year-old Li Xiaozhong had a glance through the rest of his life.
She has been in business for decades, and quickly settled her "an account": It is more sad to be alive than to die.
Li Xiaozhong decided to die before losing control of his life.
She planned one suicide and two "hiring homicides to kill herself" in ten months, and almost spent her savings for this.
After all the plans failed, Li Xiaozhong realized painfully that she could no longer decide her own life or death.
Li Xiaozhong in the wheelchair had to continue his usual days, retreating from resistance to living without dignity.
This persistent, smart, and fragile person must stay clean, decent and polite, sleep comfortably, not be bullied, not hungry, and be prepared for the breathing difficulties that he will encounter next.
Clean patient
One day in mid-September, when we went to bed together, Li Xiaozhong was busy sitting in front of the computer and sent a message to the tenants upstairs to apologize for his "disturbing people".
After eleven o'clock in the evening the previous night, after the nanny carried her to bed, she found that her thighs were itchy and red. She couldn't move and could only scream in discomfort.
That day, after the nanny stewed yam beef soup according to Li Xiaozhong's request, a piece of yam skin was stained on his arm, which caused Li Xiaozhong to have skin allergies.
"Hand washing" is Li Xiaozhong's most frequently emphasized requirement for nanny, including the palm of his hand and the entire arm.
Li Xiaozhong has sensitive skin and does not want to be touched by dirty hands.
The babysitter Wang Yanhua was found from a housekeeping company. The home was in a nearby village. She had just been here for more than a month. She was enthusiastic and strong, but she had thick hands.
At first, she often made mistakes. Sometimes she picked up the food in the refrigerator and then hugged Li Xiaozhong to get up. Li Xiaozhong reluctantly asked the nanny daughter to write a note "washing hands" and put it on the head of her bed as a reminder, although the nanny was not literate.
Wang Yanhua said that Li Xiaozhong is the most clean patient she has ever taken care of, and she doesn't even have the breath that patients can easily produce.
Every morning, Wang Yanhua spends nearly an hour helping Li Xiaozhong brush the roots of his tongue and clean the mucus in his throat, and even wipe the auricles with a cotton swab when he takes a bath.
Wang Yanhua usually likes to smoke. She knows that Li Xiaozhong is sensitive to smell, and she wears a mask every time she needs to get close to Li Xiaozhong.
Li Xiaozhong politely controlled the distance between himself and the nanny.
Whenever Wang Yanhua helped her tickle her, she would politely express her thanks, but she didn't dare to be closer, because sometimes Wang Yanhua would like to kiss her on the face when she was happy. Li Xiaozhong didn't like the saliva left on her face. The smell, but I can't wipe it off with my hands, I can only endure it.
A three-story house beside Provincial Highway 317 in Anhua County, Yiyang, Hunan is the home of Li Xiaozhong.
Li Xiaozhong gets up at 8 or 9 o'clock every day, moves from the bedroom to the bathroom with the help of the nanny, and finally stops at the computer by the window in the living room to spend her day.
This is a small corner designed for Li Xiaozhong. The idle stove is placed on the ground as a footrest, a saliva towel is placed on the computer stand, and two small pieces of wood are used as a non-slip pad behind the wheelchair.
Lace curtains blur the scenery outside the window, and a large piece of cardboard is embedded outside the window to block the sunlight every morning.
Li Xiaozhong hasn't gone downstairs for two years.
If you walk up to the second floor of her house at some point during the day and pull out the mosquito-proof door curtain, you will surely see her with her back to you, sitting in front of a second-hand laptop typing.
This is a special computer with an eye control device. In the center of the screen is a picture of the keyboard. Whenever Li Xiaozhong’s eyes focus on a letter, the eye control device will capture and instruct the computer to tap it, and send out "beep, beep, "Beep" sound.
The eyes are Li Xiaozhong's mouse. Whenever a sentence is input, she can also control the computer to read it aloud. This is the only way Li Xiaozhong communicates with the outside world.
She is accustomed to quietly controlling everything with her eyes, chatting, shopping, and watching videos by herself every day.
Whenever the large truck on the road rumbled away, the squeak of the overhead fan and the beep, beep, beep, typing sound resurfaced.
Li Xiaozhong, a second-degree disabled person, has been paralyzed in a wheelchair all year round. Now her body only has calves and neck, and she still has a little strength. She needs the help of a nanny for eating, going to the toilet, and washing, but she never shows weakness in front of the nanny.
Once, Li Xiaozhong asked Wang Yanhua to go to the bedroom to make up the bed. Wang Yanhua entered the bedroom halfway after hearing it. Li Xiaozhong's face became serious, "beep, beep, beep" stared at the screen and started typing.
After a while, the computer sounded the machine's reading aloud: "You left before I finished speaking. I said you can also hear me?" It was played twice in succession.
Wang Yanhua stood behind the wheelchair and didn't say a word.
After a while, the computer said: "Don't answer me." Wang Yanhua couldn't help laughing, "Oh, I know, I know!"
During the meal, Li Xiaozhong typed and asked the babysitter to put the fish in the porridge and feed it together. He felt that eating separately was tasteless. The people around him heard it and thought she asked too much.
While eating, Li Xiaozhong burst into tears, and her thin body twitched for a while before she stopped. She felt like she was being fierce. "Speaking to the nanny, shouldn't you stand by me?" Sometimes she seemed to be able to. Feeling the resentment of people around her, I couldn't help but ask me, "To be honest, I am not that difficult to take care of, am I?"
Deformed
Li Xiaozhong has lost more than 20 jins than before he fell ill.
This year, her eyelids have thickened, her neck has become crooked, her chin has shrunk, and her tongue has shrunk. Only the semi-permanent eyebrows and eyeliner made a few years ago remain on her face.
The "out of control" of Li Xiaozhong's body began 4 years ago.
One day in July 2017, Li Xiaozhong accidentally slipped while mopping the floor, and his right knee fell to the ground.
During the recovery process, Li Xiaozhong found that his left leg, which was not injured by a fall, became a little weak, and sometimes it was difficult to stand up again after sitting down.
By the time he started to go to hospitals for treatment, Li Xiaozhong was already walking a little erratic, afraid of being knocked down by the crowd.
When she returned to Hunan from Beijing in May 2018, she deliberately carried a suitcase in her hand, and she had to walk with something to feel safe.
The change in voice occurred five months later.
That was the marriage of Li Xiaozhong's daughter. One of the links was that the son-in-law called Li Xiaozhong on stage, and she had to agree.
The host made Li Xiaozhong's "Hey--" voice longer, but she found that her voice stopped abruptly and there was no way to prolong it.
For more than a year, Li Xiaozhong tried every conceivable treatment method, such as acupuncture, physiotherapy, massage, and eating health products.
When she took the most medicine, she started taking it at 6 pm, and took one of the five medicines every hour until 11 pm.
In order to facilitate the injection treatment on the neck, she cut off the long curly hair she likes.
In January 2019, Li Xiaozhong was diagnosed with frostbite in Wuhan Tongji Hospital.
This is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease. Patients will gradually develop symptoms such as muscle weakness, muscle atrophy, difficulty swallowing and breathing, and gradually lose their motor ability and self-care ability until death, but their intelligence, memory and perception ability Will not be affected.
The doctor told Li Xiaozhong that she might still live for two to three years.
Li Xiaozhong knew that he had been sentenced to the death penalty.
But she did not accept her fate at first, and continued to try various treatments.
The son-in-law even spent more than 10,000 yuan to ask someone to do it for her, hoping to get rid of evil spirits.
However, the speed of losing control of his body was accelerating. One year later, Li Xiaozhong could hardly walk and was completely in a wheelchair.
Li Xiaozhong calculated an account in her heart. If she can only live for two to three years, her savings will probably be enough for medical expenses, but she knows that patients with advanced frostbite cannot live without a ventilator and can only lie in bed all day long. NS.
She didn't want to wait until that time to suffer without the quality of life. She decided to end her life before that, "to die or die, so as not to lose money and lose money and suffer."
At the time of diagnosis, Li Xiaozhong’s daughter was only two months away from the expected date of delivery. Li Xiaozhong still wanted to watch her grandson grow up and still want to live. She set a deadline for her life and determined to die before she lost the ability to commit suicide.
Li Xiaozhong's husband, Chen Shijun, took care of her for a short period of time. In his opinion, the time spent taking care of the patient made him feel a little irritable, and Li Xiaozhong's moaning of "yelling" made him feel sick.
Once he washed Li Xiaozhong's face, Li Xiaozhong started to call for some reason. He had to push her to the computer and wait for her to type, only to realize that it was because of cold legs.
Chen Shijun was a little bit dumbfounded, "Don't you think you should wash your face as soon as possible with cold legs?" Chen Shijun said that although he wanted to go out to earn money, he could not get out of his body due to the frequent changes of nanny at home. Go to the field.
For her "exaggerated" voice, Li Xiaozhong has no way to control it. Now it is difficult for her to make a sound, and that kind of call is more like a sound from the body, without bass. I won't understand".
Covert suicide
Li Xiaozhong thought that he had already made a good judgment and took the initiative to end his life in his own hands.
She never thought about the possibility of suicide failure, thinking that as long as she was ready, everything would be logical.
She knew that she could not disclose her thoughts to her family, because they "it is impossible to watch me die."
She started her secret plan.
About four months after the diagnosis, Li Xiaozhong bought 5 boxes of sleeping pills online for 500 yuan, and later bought 100 neuroleptics.
She dug the pills into the glass bottle one by one, packed two bottles, and hid them in her room, preparing to eat them when her body was about to last.
In order to confirm the effectiveness of the medicine, Li Xiaozhong also tasted a few tablets in small amounts to compare which works faster.
With the medicine that she bought later, she could sleep for a day or two by taking half a tablet. Li Xiaozhong was very satisfied with the effect.
At the same time, Li Xiaozhong paid close attention to the changes in his body, especially his hand strength and swallowing function.
She often finds opportunities to practice screwing the bottle cap, worrying that one day she won't be able to screw it.
Since the nanny is usually at home almost all day, it is difficult for Li Xiaozhong to take medicine without being noticed.
On January 17, 2020, Li Xiaozhong came to the opportunity.
This day was the day before the Lunar New Year. She asked her babysitter to go home on holiday. Her husband Chen Shijun arrived home at nine o'clock in the evening, and she had a period of time alone.
Li Xiaozhong set the time to take the medicine at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so that he would have time to wait for the onset of the medicine's effects and he could find himself when he returned home.
She told the babysitter that she wanted to drink yogurt and asked the babysitter to pour it in a bowl and prepare it before leaving.
Li Xiaozhong first mixes the 90-plus medicines in the first bottle into the yogurt, and plans to continue taking the second bottle of medicine after eating.
Although she was still reluctant to die, she told herself in her heart that if she didn't do it now, there would be no chance.
Li Xiaozhong also left a suicide note on the table to explain to his daughter the whereabouts of his remaining money.
But the progress was not as she had hoped.
When Li Xiaozhong took more than 20 sleeping pills, the nanny called her for a few minutes, and she had to pause for a while.
After eating more than 50 slices, her husband's brother suddenly came to the house and gave her a disability certificate. Li Xiaozhong heard the movement and was so frightened that he hurriedly covered the bowl.
After he left, Li Xiaozhong continued to take medicine, and then lost consciousness.
Li Xiaozhong slept at home for several days.
When she opened her eyes, she was in no mood. She only remembered that she was surrounded by a large group of relatives. Someone asked her, "Why is this all of a sudden?"
Li Xiaozhong didn't expect that he would go to sleep after only taking the first bottle of medicine, and that he had not had time to take the second bottle of medicine that was more effective.
After taking the medicine, Li Xiaozhong's condition worsened. Originally, she could still eat by herself, and she lost strength after waking up.
Li Xiaozhong regretted it very much. He did not expect that the medicine would not be finished, nor did he consider the order of taking the two medicines. He wasted an opportunity, "I am too stupid, I should take the more powerful one first."
After the plan failed, Li Xiaozhong fell into deep pain because of his inability to commit suicide.
She sent a message to her girlfriend, "I can't die now, and I can't live, I took a bottle of sleeping pills, but I came back alive again", "I really don't want to live anymore", and the girlfriend comforted her heartbrokenly. , "It's better to die than to live."
Li Xiaozhong didn't want to stay alive, she moved her mind again and decided to find someone else to help her end her life.
She found Zhang Moujiang, another girlfriend's boyfriend, and heard that he had a good connection and wanted to ask him to help find someone, but he did not expect him to agree.
Li Xiaozhong proposed a gas poisoning plan, asking for a price of 10,000 yuan. Zhang Moujiang refused to agree, and she added another 20,000 yuan.
Li Xiaozhong used the excuse to tie the belt to the gas tank to train his hand strength, and asked the nanny to move the two tanks of gas into the room.
That night, Li Xiaozhong asked the nanny to go home first.
After Zhang Moujiang came, he opened two cans of gas, closed the bedroom door and left.
After Li Xiaozhong took a few tablets of Valium, he waited in bed.
Unexpectedly, when a large truck passed by on the road, the door suddenly shook open.
Li Xiaozhong hurriedly called Zhang Moujiang, but the other party agreed but did not come back.
Li Xiaozhong rolled from the bed to the ground in despair, waiting for dawn, she knew that the babysitter was coming back soon, "it was nothing again."
Three months later, Li Xiaozhong found Zhang Moujiang again and agreed on a plan to poison him with cyanide. Unexpectedly, Zhang Moujiang replaced him with potato chip powder and defrauded Li Xiaozhong of nearly 50,000 yuan.
The three plans failed, and Li Xiaozhong felt that fate was torturing him.
Alive
Li Xiaozhong is most often active in a QQ patient group of 750 people. Sometimes everyone "catch-in" to each other through remote control software to solve technical problems on each other's computers. They call the computer their "home".
Regarding the idea of death, Li Xiaozhong has always only discussed in the group.
Here, wanting to die is a normal emotion.
Li Xiaozhong often sees people complaining about "Can't live", "If I haven't sent a message for three days, I will be gone."
Many people in the group who have lost their ability to commit suicide want to try to starve to death, but they can't continue for three days.
Patients with frostbite are often ambivalent when facing their families.
Li Xiaozhong saw many female group friends complaining that her husband was not good to him, "everyone has", and sometimes they only give one meal a day, and there are domestic violence.
And if the family members are too nice, the group of friends will feel guilty and think that they are the burden of the family.
After three failed plans, Li Xiaozhong also tried to find someone to help him commit suicide.
After asking more than 100 possible candidates from WeChat friends, someone asked her to transfer money first, and some people suggested some unrealistic methods. Li Xiaozhong finally had to give up and concluded, "There is only one way, then Just starve to death".
She tried it too, but after a few days she couldn't hold on.
When Li Xiao's parents divorced when she was a child, she moved with her mother to her adoptive father's house.
Family members rarely take care of her. At the age of 16, she was sent to a barber shop as an apprentice.
After meeting her husband Chen Shijun, they worked hard together in Zhuhai for several years. Later, due to family conflicts, she went to Beijing to find a girlfriend to open a barber shop alone because of her good craftsmanship and a steady stream of customers.
Li Xiaozhong worked very hard, "I won't stop unless things are done." Before the Chinese New Year in 2016, she used to do sanitation in the store alone until 3 am. The weather was cold that day, and Li Xiaozhong had menstruation and was so tired. To the hospital.
Now, Li Xiaozhong has to live, but for her, there is no reason to live.
She usually lives every day, sitting in front of the computer, time is not very sad, the day passed quickly.
When she was bored, she went to the patient group and chatted with people, even more than with her girlfriends. She knew that each of her girlfriends had family troubles, "they are no longer in the same world."
Li Xiaozhong can feel that her body is getting worse and worse. Sometimes she feels difficult to swallow when eating. She can’t breathe when she lies flat. She feels pain in various parts of the body in turn. She doesn’t know the distance to use a ventilator and a sputum suction machine. How long is there?
Just as he hoped to control his own life before committing suicide, Li Xiaozhong still wanted to control his own life.
She has her own idea, and she has to solve the problem.
In order to reduce the frequency of going to the toilet, she is accustomed to drinking almost no water.
In order to type faster, she figured out the faster input method of typing only the first letter.
In order to save 500 yuan a month, she replaced the babysitter with one who was not responsible for massage.
When something went wrong at home, she pulled all her friends into the group to consult with everyone.
She prepared the ventilator accessories for herself in advance, bought a more comfortable foam mattress, and hoped to apply to the government for a bed in a nursing home in the future.
However, she is still looking forward to the news that euthanasia is legal, and she said this is the common wish of some patients.
Before waiting for the chance to die again, Li Xiaozhong decided to live well.
(Wang Yanhua is a pseudonym in the text)
Text/Reporter Zhang Han