Wrapping Up the WordCrafter “The Ones Who Stayed With Me” Book Blog Tour

It’s the final stop on the WordCrafter “The Ones Who Stayed With Me” Book Blog Tour.

Giveaway

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free digital copy of

The Ones Who Stayed With Me

By Nurse Sammy

One entry per stop.

Winners are chosen in a random drawing.

Sponsored by WordCrafter Press.

About The Ones Who Stayed With Me

Chronicles of the journey into the medical field as a young nurse and beyond, told with raw sensitivity and compassion. The Ones Who Stayed with Me offers small glimpses into the world of an L.P.N. put in difficult, often touching or humorous, situations—and Nurse Sammy’s courage, vulnerability, and insight are a gift to us all. In these pages, Nurse Sammy tells her story and that of those she met along the way.

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/OnesWhoStayed

Short Trailer

About Nurse Sammy

Nurse Sammy has spent her life walking the quiet edges of human suffering and human grace. Long before she ever wore scrubs, she learned how to read a room by the way someone breathed and how to steady a shaking hand. How to listen to the stories people only tell when they think it might be their last night to say them. Nursing wasn’t a career she chose; it was the language her heart was already speaking.

She has worked in places where life is beginning, and in places where life is ending; in rooms lit by hope, and in rooms where grief hangs heavy in the doorway. Rehab centers, memory care halls, pediatric units, assisted living, private homes, wherever someone needed gentleness, she went. She became the one who held vigil, the one who noticed the quiet details, the one who stayed.

Her personal life has carried its own ache, abuse survived, love lost, a marriage that bruised the soul, another built from healing, and a grief that still hums beneath her ribs. She writes from the tender, broken places, from the nights she rebuilt herself alone, from the mornings she rose anyway. Her words are shaped by both the wounds and the resilience that followed.

The Ones Who Stayed With Me is her first published work, a collection of truths disguised as stories, honoring the people who left fingerprints on her life in ways they never saw. Her writing is soft but unflinching, honest but merciful, threaded with the belief that even in darkness, someone is always holding a light.

Nurse Sammy lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she continues to care, to witness, to learn, and to turn the hardest parts of her journey into something that might help someone else breathe a little easier.

My Interview with Nurse Sammy

Kaye: The book tells a lot about your journey as a nurse. Would you tell us a little about your author journey? What inspired you to write The Ones Who Stayed With Me?

Sammy: My first year of nursing was very adventurous. I knew these stories would be written in a book one day. There was just something in me. I kept record of these stories. It took me a few years to work up the courage to write, but in the summer of 2025, I took the time to finally start. I started a new sticky note on my phone and wrote down the stories I wanted to write. I started a rough draft in word and would work on it before or after work. I spent lunch on my phone writing titles and brainstorming ideas. I was enjoying the process of writing so much that it was consuming my life, I could not stop. The emotions of writing helped me process what I had experienced and what others did too. I wanted to teach people what really happens behind the curtain.

Kaye: What are some of the challenges in writing this book for you?

Sammy: Writing was never my strong suit in school. I am a horrible speller, and grammar is not my forte. I was nervous that my stories would be unreadable and hard to digest. As I wrote, things got easier. I was stressed that this wouldn’t work out. I had to take a step back and remember that I was writing this for me first. No one had to see it if I chose that. I got more confident and showed some friends. It became easier.

Kaye: What is the most gratifying part of this book for you?

Sammy: Being able to share the stories with others. I wanted to educate and teach people what healthcare professionals go through. These are common stories in healthcare. A lot of us have had similar shifts. I wanted patients to understand that they are not alone either.

Kaye: What has been the biggest obstacle for you, as an author?

Sammy: Believing in myself. Having faith in myself to follow through on something. To start something and finish it. This was a big project for me. I was proud of what I was doing, that it kept me on track. I had to persuade myself once to keep going, I was determined.

Kaye: What author (dead or alive) would you most like to have lunch with?

Sammy: Judy Blume. She wrote childhood classics. Some of my favorite days in school were 4^th and 5^th grade. Judy Blume’s books were the books chosen for those two years. We read them out loud together. Did book reports on them. And had quizzes over them. I fell in love with them. They are simple cute books. But they were my childhood. Even as an adult, I read her books.

Kaye: What is the best piece of writing advice that you have ever received?

Sammy: Start. Just start writing. Everything will flow out as long as you start. Let the emotions out and write for yourself first and others second.

Kaye: Are there more books in the works, or is this just a one-and-done thing?

Sammy: I have started brainstorming and have a sticky note in my phone for my second book. There are many stories that still haven’t been written. The more years I work, the crazier things have gotten. Especially after Covid. I am excited to keep writing and hope I can educate more and more people.

Kaye: Where do you hope to see yourself as a writer, and as a nurse, in ten years?

Sammy: I hope to have a few more books written. I really enjoyed this process and hope to continue it. As a nurse, I dream of having my doctorate in nursing. I hope to go back to school soon to work towards a higher degree in nursing. I plan to one day be a Nurse Practitioner for pediatrics or geriatrics, only time will tell.

Kaye: What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Sammy: Believe in yourself, even if no one else does. That spark in you wants to grow, let it. Even if you just write a sentence a day. Understand you are allowed to learn and grow as you write. You don’t have to be perfect.

Kaye: Where can readers learn more about you and your books?

Sammy: I am currently working on social media accounts as an author. I will have profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Stay tuned.

Denise Aparo’s Review of The Ones Who Stayed With Me

The Ones Who Stayed With Me by Nurse Sammy
Book Review by Denise Aparo

The Ones Who Stayed With Me by Nurse Sammy is a powerful debut collection of true stories that leaves a lasting impression on both the heart and mind. These narratives are raw, honest, and emotionally intense—sometimes humorous, always compassionate—and reveal how grace can be found in the merciful field of nursing through care, service, and human connection.

Written in a memoir-style, journalistic format, Nurse Sammy chronicles eight years of her life working as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). She guides readers through her journey from the very beginning, presenting her experiences through a series of chronological snapshots. The book may be read cover to cover or opened at random, as each chapter stands on its own while contributing to a larger, meaningful whole. The stories explore life’s beginnings, endings, and everything in between, taking place in rehab centers, memory care halls, pediatric units, assisted living facilities, private homes, and wherever compassionate care is needed most.

Interwoven throughout the book are deeply personal reflections on heartache, surviving abuse, profound grief, a lost marriage, and ultimately, healing and rediscovered love. The opening chapter, This Job Will Break Your Heart, immediately grounds the reader in the emotional reality of nursing, while also emphasizing resilience, strength, and the wisdom gained through hardship.

Each chapter offers a gripping short story filled with Nurse Sammy’s experiences, emotions, and adventures in the field. Not every story has a happy ending—some have no ending at all—but each carries a moral and a life lesson, delivered with sincerity, empathy, and at times, gentle humor. For readers considering a career in caregiving or nursing, this book provides invaluable insight into both the emotional demands and the profound rewards of the profession.

Ultimately, The Ones Who Stayed With Me serves as a moving reminder that angels often appear in our darkest hours—sometimes wearing scrubs.

Lindsey Martin-Bowen’s Review of The Ones Who Stayed With Me

The Ones Who Stayed with Me—Raw Stories from the Bedside (WordCrafter Press 2026)

            Whew! Even though I am not a member of this collection’s target audience, indeed its  true stories hooked me. (I admit, with a mother who was an RN from the late 1940s and returned to the profession after raising seven children, and a sister who works as a Nurse Anesthetist with a daughter whose first year of being a nurse was during the COVID epidemic, a story collection penned by an author named Nurse Sammy aroused my curiosity.)

            Yes, once reading these episodes, I was snared. Nurse Sammy penned these true stories about her experiences serving in an array of positions in the nursing profession, (which she entered when she was 18), as a guide for those entering that field. By age 20, she served as  a night shift Charge Nurse for a huge retirement community enclosed in a “sprawling” building linked to “elegant corridors easy to get lost in.” There, she “oversaw 190 residents, six Med Aides, and fourteen CNAs until 10 pm.” After that hour, she reminisced, she and six CNAs served that retirement home.

            Afterwards, in a section entitled Finding My Groove: Rehab #3, Vancouver, WA, she describes where she believes she “finally received real training, two weeks across all shifts.” There, in that place which “felt like family,” she worked as a Floor Nurse from Monday through Friday, 2 p-10 pm.

            “Nurses handled all meds and treatments,” she recalled. “It was intense, but I thrived. My usual shift included seventeen patients.”

            And she remained there when “COVID-19 hit,” and she “volunteered for he new Covid wing. Sixteen rooms, one nurse, two CNAs, twelve-hour shifts, five days a week. I did it for five months. No one died on my watch.”

            About halfway through this collection, she included another episode about the Covid  experience, “2020 The Year the World Shut Down,” occurring when she was “twenty-two years old and two years into my nursing career.” There the residents were  “people who already could not breathe on their own, long before COVID was a headline.”

            When the facility received its “first positive [COVID] case” . . .[w]e all knew it was over,”

she wrote, then described how ill-prepared that institution was for the pandemic: “We stored our masks in paper bags, labeled with our names, praying they would still be ‘clean’ the next day. Some of us used the same face shield for weeks, wiping it down between patients, cracked forming in the corners. We all knew it was not enough.”

            And here, she included the heart-breaking story of a 55-year-old patient she dubbed “Jane,” who’d been a resident for years.

            “She had a trach and was on a vent, but she was vibrant, She had a laugh that filled the whole house, even with the voice that comes through a speaking valve. Every morning, she wanted her hair brushed, red lipstick on and her gospel music playing. She was not supposed to die, not yet.”

            Nevertheless, Jane tested positive, and “she knew. She looked at me with wide, terrified eyes I wanted to believe. ‘No Jane. You are strong. You will beat that.” I could not. We both knew what this virus did to the lungs. Especially lungs relying on machines.”

            Her body’s oxygen needs “skyrocketed” a day later, and by the third day, she could no longer laugh. Nurse Sammy sat by her bed in sweat-soaked gown, held Jane’s hand in

“double-gloved fingers, and whispered “Your are safe. You are not alone.”

             Jane died the next day. Nurse Sammy added, We did no even have time to mourn her,” and added, “I did not sleep. I barely ate. I cried on the bathroom between med passes. Still, I came back the next day, and the one after that. Who else would sit with them? Who else would make sure they did not die afraid?”

            Later, in the sections, Better Than Textbooks  and Jane the Bitch, set in the second and fourth assisted living centers where she served as a memory care nurse, Nurse Sammy shares the experience with “John.” a senior citizen raised during the Great Depression, who shared stories about his family using “flour sacks for curtains” and “talked about sneaking sis of bootleg gin during Prohibition. “John lit up when I sat beside him. His eyes usually dull and half-lidded would brighten.”

            Similarly, her short about “Jane the Bitch” revealed how that resident, a retired nurse, who “had worked nights for decades,” was sharp, sarcastic, condescending and downright mean,” was tamed when Nurse Nanny watched how she liked to take her meds “with ice cold milk” and “liked the lights dimmed,” and stared serving her milk “in a chilled glass,” turned down the lights and “picked up on her other quirks.”

            “ . . .surviving Jane meant learning her code. Once I cracked it, something unexpected happened. She started talking. Not in her usual bark, but in something softer. Once night, she told me about her first years as a nurse. How she worked in the E.R., sometimes twelve days in a row. How she buried her stress in sarcasm and bourbon, How she lost her husband, and how pain had followed her for years before it ever settled in her bones.”

            Especially in those two pieces,  Nurse Nancy revealed how a nurse may connect with elderly persons who must live the rest of their lives in assisted living centers.

            She added that after she and Jane connected that night, she caught Jane “watching me from her recliner while I quietly filled the med cup.”

            “She said, ‘You are good. You pay attention.’ That was the closest U ever got to a compliment fro Jane. Weirdly, it meant more than the thank yous I had gotten that week. . . I learned that even the most difficult people need connection. Even bitches deserve consistency. Sometimes the person who fights you the hardest is the one who needs you the most. . . Jane was the bitch I never saw coming, and one who never left me.”

            (Note—Nurse Nancy refers to all the male patients as “John” and all the female patients as “Jane,” to preserve their identities.”

            A Pacific Northwest writer, Nurse Sammy continues to serve the medical community as an LPN. This collection of stories is her first published book, which she wrote to “honor the

people who left fingerprints on her life in ways they never saw.” And by doing so, she created a collection well-worth reading—even for us non-nurses.

                                                                                                            —Lindsey Martin-Bowen

                                                                                                            Cashing Checks with Jim Morrison (redbat books 2024)

Wrap Up

That wraps things up for today’s stop and for the tour. Thank you all for joining us, and don’t forget to leave a comment to show your support, and for an entry in the giveaway for a free digital copy. If you missed a stop, you can still visit each one through the links in the schedule below.

Tour Schedule

Mon. 12 – Poetry by Mich, Hotel by Masticadores & Masticadores Phillipines – “The Backbone of Healthcare: The C.N.A.” Reading by Nurse Sammy –

Poetry by Mich: https://michnavs.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/the-ones-who-stayed-with-me-tour-stop-1/

Hotel By Masticadores: https://hotelmasticadoreshouse.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/the-ones-who-stayed-with-me-tour-stop-1/

Masticadores Philippines: https://masticadoresphilippines.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/the-ones-who-stayed-with-me-tour-stop-1/

Tues. 13 – Roberta Writes – “Better Than Textbooks” Reading by Nurse Sammy – https://roberta-writes.com/2026/01/13/roberta-writes-guest-post-the-ones-who-stayed-with-me-wordcrafter-book-blog-tour/

Wed. 14 – Undawnted – “Is it B.M. or Chocolate Pudding?” Reading by Nurse Sammy & Review by DL Mullan

Thurs. 15 – Book Places – “The Year I Ate $2 Hotdogs” Reading by Nurse Sammy – https://bookplaces.blog/the-ones-who-stayed-with-me-day-4-word-crafter-book-blog-tours/

Fri. 16 – Writing to be Read – Interview, Review by Denise Aparo & Review by Lindsey Martin-Bowen

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