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Nurse and writer Dew presents stories about the realm of nursing designed to entertain and surprise her readers while endowing them with a more thoughtful attitude. Her first offering gives a glimpse of the oddities to come when she is asked to help fulfill a gay male patient's last wish. With Dew's persistence, his favorite musical piece, "Killing Me Softly with His Song," is played at his funeral. A hospice nurse and her co-workers deal with three deaths in one night. A public health nurse visits a poverty-racked farm home and swallows a fly, wondering later where it had been before it landed in her mouth. A professor asks a nursing student named Alexa a complex question, and the answer is suddenly pronounced by a nearby Echo-Dot, to the great amusement of all present. One of the most moving stories involves a patient being diligently prepared for post-mortem care when a loud gasp of air startles the gathered medical staff: "One could say that the patient had the last word in this case…."
Dew candidly speaks from her direct experience and that of co-workers after a fifty-three-year medical career ranging from education, administration, home health, and hospice care. She vividly portrays nurses caring for bariatric (extremely overweight) patients, those in domestic violence and other public settings, and in the classroom, picturing how education has changed, even for practical, hands-on nursing care in the era of COVID-19. She recalls the difficulties she and her cohort faced before GPS in locating their patient's homes and cites both amusing and disturbing incidents that occurred in those homes and facility settings. Her short vignettes deftly highlight the many different branches of nursing, giving all interested readers and especially those contemplating that career, a deeper insight into the wide range of incidents that can be anticipated.