This is the first book in the newly minted Post-it Sunday Medical non-fiction edition or Post-it Sunday Medical fiction edition.
Year of the Nurse by Cassandra Alexander was published July 19, 2021. I pre-purchased the book May 25, 2021 on Kindle. I did not read this book until the past week.
By any measure that is a fast turnaround for a book. On an evolving and delicate subject like covid.
There are reasons for that. I had just lived through the damned pandemic and am living through the damned thing and I didn’t want to delve too much into it.
But I wanted to be aware of the others who were being our chroniclers. I was doing my chronicling on Dispatches from the Evening Shift and reading the news. All the news, good and bad.
Remember that in spring 2021 the vaccination efforts were in full swing. I have my own notes from working my normal shift from 1430-2300, being on call 2300-0700, and having to get up, hoping that there would be no case called, at 0600 to get ready to drive to the vaccination site in the next county. I worked there from 0800-1300 and returned to the hospital for my normal 1430-2300 shift. Rinse, repeat for at least a week. And then again as my hospital schedule allowed for it.
But reading her book now I realize that she is my people. She is foul mouthed, quick to volunteer, ready to take on anything and sick of the measly mouthed response to PPE in 2020. And also disgusted by the lack of testing.
She acknowledges that the U.S. response was poor. That we were told to reuse masks and PPE. That family members were not allowed at bedside. But she and I both watched as other countries were better outfitted with PPE.
This book is part tweet recall, part diary, and part April 2021 thoughts. It pulls no punches about how bad it was in the early days of the pandemic.
Included, at no extra charge, is the idiot brother in Texas who denigrates the author even as she is sharing information to keep their parents well. Her, not me.
At the end of the book, she writes about when the Great Resignation came for hospital nurses and she volunteered to work extra shifts because if not her, then who. She also touches upon the insanity of the anti-vaxxers and their holier than thou bad attitude. As if their shit doesn’t stink too.
I know that this book ends in April 2021 and the author has zero idea how bad the anti-vaxxers get with their truth twisting bullshit. But I remember.
It is important to realize and remember that we were flying blind. No one, not the NIH, not the CDC, no one had all the answers.
Fabulous book. 10/10 would recommend. If only people who need to read it would.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 