I finished the “Five Feet Apart” book. It was cute but has definite untruths. (Spoiler alert! If you don’t want to know about the book/movie before you read/watch it then don’t continue reading haha)

The book is told in the 2 leads points of views. Each chapter is told in alternating points of view. The female lead is Stella. She has CF and is in the hospital. The male lead is Will and also has CF and cultures b. cepacia which comes into play very soon. Will and Stella don’t see eye to eye first. Will doesn’t do his treatments like he is supposed to. He is on a study drug for the b. cepacia. He is not eligible for a lung transplant due to the b. cepacia so he is down on himself. Stella is a type A and very OCD about doing her treatments. Stella notices the new guy, Will, one day on her floor at her hospital. She takes it upon herself to later organize his med cart which is in his room. First of all, you are not allowed to keep your meds in your room. The nurses always bring all of your meds to you at their scheduled time. Well that is the goal of being on time. Haha.

CFers with b. cepacia are not allowed to hang out with other CFers because b. cepacia is a hard bacteria to treat and you are no longer allowed to receive a lung transplant. Or at least that I know of. So with that said, Stella took it upon herself to help Will do his treatments. She designed an app that reminds you of your pills and treatments. She downloaded that on his phone for him so he would do his treatments and take his meds. They quickly became friends even though they got started off on the wrong foot. There is another character, Poe, who is Stella’s best friend. Poe also has CF and happens to be in the hospital as well. They sneak out of their rooms and roam the hospital, always staying 6 feet apart. Six feet is the CF Foundations recommended distance for CFers to be apart to keep cross contamination down.

Both Stella and Will have feeding tubes. Stella’s tube site got infected and she had to have a new one put in. Her and Will snuck out after her tube placement and went to the hospital pool. Stella jumped in. Number two thing that is not realistic. There is no way she would be “allowed” to (not that they asked permission) or supposed to be swimming after just having her tube placed and with having an infected site. They go through a fight because, Barb, the respiratory therapist saw them together and ripped Will a new one talking about how dangerous it was for them to be together. So they stayed away from each other for awhile and didn’t talk. Then Stella made a vlog about b. cepacia which Will found out she made vlogs and watched all of her videos. In the video she says that CF had robbed her of so much so she was taking a foot back, hence the name of the book being “Five Feet Apart.” So she has a pool cue that is 5 feet long and uses that to determine the distance they need to stay apart.

Fast forward a bit…they sneak out of the hospital and go to a park close by. While there, Stella gets a call for lungs. They are messing around and Stella finally looks at her phone and sees the messages but ignores them because she doesn’t want to stop being with Will. Then Will gets messages from Barb and his mom saying Stella got the call for lungs. He got upset with Stella because she knew she got messages about the lungs and ignored them. Long story short, she ends up getting the lungs after not wanting to because if she got the lungs, she can’t be around Will anymore.

I didn’t give all the details so you will have some surprises when you read it. I’m curious to see what the movie will show. All in all it was a cute book that has a real factor to it but there were untruths in it but that is to be expected.

Until next time…