Year of the Nurse: A 2020 Pandemic Memoir

hey, so, it's been awhile....

Hey there, it’s your covid-ICU nurse friend Cassie again, and I know it has been a very long time since I’ve reached out.

(I also know last you heard from me, I talked about switching newsletter servers, but I’m just doing this here because it’s easier, because there won’t be too many more of these emails anyhow.)

So — I fell off the earth with good reason. You can probably go back through the archives here and see that I was significantly depressed, no surprise, and like many other tests I’ve taken in life, I managed to ace the PTSD exam once my therapist gave it to me.

At the end of April I had a suicidal crisis while at work which was pretty ironic, seeing as I was supposed to be keeping people alive there.

I would up getting the past few months off since then using FMLA leave, and after I could manage to do something with myself (which took awhile)…I started writing a book.

About everything.

About what it all was like.

From the beginning — February 2020 — all the way up until I wrote The End yesterday.

It’s collated from tweets of mine, journal entries, ‘today in covid-news’ snippets, emails, author newsletters, and posts from here — just showing what it was like to be a nurse in the world last year.

And it’s just about ready to show to all of y’all.

People have asked me why I’m not going the ‘traditional publishing’ route with it, but trad pub books take 6-18 months to be published, and honestly, my soul cannot wait that long. And, I feel, neither can the souls of the other 4 million nurses that were trapped last year in hell with me — and maybe some of you. We all need to feel seen and heard.

So — I’ve had the book professionally copyedited, and I’m waiting on my professional cover, and the inside’s all shined up real nice — all it needs is some readers.

I’m reaching out because I hope that might be you.

I’m offering 50 advance review copies — basically the first 50 people that email me here: cassandraassistant@gmail.com — will get a link to a pre-pub copy of the book, and hopefully you’ll feel moved after checking it out to give an honest review.

The book is currently up on Amazon for pre-order with a temporary cover — if you’re a twitter buddy who has preordered it, and you want to put your hat in the ring for a free copy here, that’s fine, if you’re in that first 50 people I’ll let you know and you can cancel your pre-order. (And if you get an ARC copy and you love it to death, you can totally feel free to buy a copy, no problem! ;))

I will be releasing this book wide once I get my final cover in — so it’ll be on other platforms as well, B&N, Kobo, etc. I’m just not as familiar with them as I am with Amazon is all. This book will also be coming out in a print edition, and in audio (if I play my cards right.)

I’ve basically spent the last two months giving this project my all. It’s done a world of good for me to finally get all the junk up in my head out on paper. It’s going to make you cry (with me) and it’s going to make you angry (like we all were) but I hope it can also provide some sense of catharsis for you, too, just like it did me.

Thanks for reading,

—Cassie