Everybody Just Breathe: A COVID Nurse Memoir of Stamina and Swear Words

 2023 Gold IPPY Award Winner - Autobiography/Memoir Gold Winner at the 2023 Illumination Book Awards Jack, in my head I am considering you already dead. Is that wrong? I think it is a coping mechanism. You are just a body now, albeit one that I watch very closely. There are so many of you that we pour our hearts into, just to end up like this. So, I can't think of you as a person right now. I am sorry about that. That is my confession. I am too busy trying to save you. Amanda Peterson is an ICU nurse, graduate student, and mother of two. She's also one of America's frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19. For nearly a year, Amanda worked in COVID ICU. Every patient every day was admitted with the same diagnosis. The beds filled up, but the mainstays of hospital life—frantic call lights, trays of half-eaten meals, and questions from worried families—disappeared as patient after patient began their own agonizing fight for breath. Everybody Just Breathe is a harrowing, generous, a