I met Rodney Mann around the end of chapter 6 when he was thinking about strolling in front of a bus. He was looking for any remaining reasons not to.
After some conversation, he told me, "I had a really good life before this happened."
What happened was an accident at work, a slip and fall injury that progressed in a painful nerve disease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome; anyone that has had it for any length of time knows it as the Suicide Disease. The primary symptom is horrific burning pain that never takes a day off.
And it takes over your life. You don't have choices anymore.
Life with the Suicide Disease tells both tales: the good life he worked hard for, and how, in an instant, everything he had and everyone he loved disappeared.