Dear reader who possibly uses healthcare services,

Above you see Mochi in my bathroom sink, offering assistance and critique regarding my makeup. He and his brother are currently being cared for by my mother and their army of robots while I'm at work in Seattle.

I don't talk about my day job much in this newsletter, but in my other life, I'm a CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist), sometimes called a "nurse anesthesiologist" (not to be confused with a "physician anesthesiologist"), sometimes just "anesthetist." We provide most of the anesthesia in rural America and quite a lot of it in urban America as well. We can work under a physician anesthesiologist or solo under the surgeon.

I've been in practice for 13 years, working as a contractor (AKA locum tenens) for all but my first year. I cover temporary and semi-temporary needs for hospitals in all kinds of anesthesia staffing crunches. I've worked solo more often than not, including assignments in Navajo Nation, assignments on the US/Mexico border, critical access hospitals all over Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, and a few other states. I've covered everything from surgery centers and single-operating room hospitals to big teaching hospitals in cities like Seattle and Portland.

I chose this profession and this style of practice specifically because it pairs well with writing books. I was in veterinary school when I made the abrupt (and painful) decision to switch career paths. It was a hard call, but I'm glad I did it, because I have a great deal of free time, complete control over my schedule, and the ability to dial my income up and down, depending on how much I want to work vs write.

Of course, when I made the decision to switch to human anesthesia, I didn't know that I was going to live through a respiratory pandemic. Anesthesia is the intubuating specialty. We're the airway experts. Maximum droplet exposure. So...I just worked through a respiratory pandemic as an airway specialist. Strange times.

I was working in Seattle from early 2018 until Feb of 2020. This week was my first time back in town in 3 years. It's good to be back.

If you would like to hear me talk about this stuff in more detail, I post my rambling thoughts to my Patreon podcast ($3 level) about once a week and have been doing so since 2015. That audio blog goes back a long way. Recently someone emailed me to say they'd just listened straight through and I said, "You probably know things about me that I don't know!" Because I never relisten to those posts.

In addition to my audio blog, my professional audiobooks also get released for a limited time at that level. I will sometimes post more personal audio updates at the $5 level and more general updates at the $1 level, or even free. You can "follow" me at the free level without subscribing. Just click the blue "follow" button underneath the support tiers. But the main podcast blog is at the $3 level.

What do my kitties do when I travel? Well, I've tried all the things. Sometimes they get boarded. Sometimes my parents are available to cat-sit/ house-sit. If all else fails, I will pay someone to look in on them a couple times a day at home, but that's a last resort, because they get too lonely (and destructive in their boredom). I've got cameras in key locations inside and outside the house, so I can keep a close eye on how they are doing.

And, of course, sometimes the cats come with me. Nim and Nix had both seen lots of hotel rooms, hospital lodgings, and small apartments. Taro and Mochi have not yet visited a hotel. I'm a little afraid of what they might open, break, or steal, but I'm sure I'll find out at some point, because I can't imagine that they won't eventually be getting on a train or plane with me. Their early experiences were limited by Nim's needs and the peculiarities of the pandemic. Nim had reached the age where he could not be boarded or travel with me, and so I made a lot of adjustments in my schedule just for him. Taro and Mochi are young, flexible, healthy, and super-curious about the world.

I've talked a lot about traveling with cats on the podcast over the years, so if this is interesting to you, for $3 there's 8 year's worth of me chatting about my adventures.

What's the News in Books?

• I was going to start posting Cormorant audio to the Patreon this week and then I realized that I don't have the opening credits. That's something I need to record myself, and I'm not home. I'll be back home and near my microphone next weekend, so I'll do it then.

• I've finished all the pieces of what will be the 5th Hunters Universe book, Legacy. You can read them in draft form at the $5 level on Patreon, or you can wait a few months for me to clean them up and publish them.

• I've started writing on the Sleipner books again. New chapters of the draft will start posting at the $1 level this week.

Yours, An Author who can also intubate you (how many authors can say that??),
Abbie