Today we’d like to introduce you to Shardae Burt.
Hi Shardae, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a Detroit girl. Before the nursing badge, I was a medical assistant in a surgery clinic, raising two kids and studying sterile processing at night. I had a plan. First surgical assistant. I could see it.
Then March 2015 happened.
My phone rang. It was someone I’d known since I was thirteen. He’d been shot. And I went. I drove him to a hospital in Ohio. By the next morning, I was in handcuffs.
My kids went to sleep that night expecting pizza.
I didn’t come home for 84 days.
When I got out, my story was all over the local news. People had already decided who I was. I could have let them be right. I didn’t. I went back to school. I kept working in sterile processing. I earned my BSN from Davenport University, and in 2022, I became a registered nurse.
Me. The woman in the headlines.
Today, I’m a med-surg nurse with a background in travel and strike nursing, and I’m working on my graduate degree at the University of Michigan-Flint. In October 2026, I published *84 Days: The Fall*, the first book in my trilogy, and launched it at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. I also founded the Rise Anyway Foundation, because too many people are still being judged by the worst night of their lives.
I know that feeling. I lived it.
I fell. I fought. And I’m still rising.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It absolutely has not been a smooth road. Coming home after 84 days was only the beginning. I returned to a different life, and my name carried a different weight. People who used to call stopped calling. People I thought would stay walked away. Educational opportunities disappeared, and work became harder to find. Some people had already decided who I was based on a headline. I had to decide whether I would let that define me, or keep believing in the person I knew I could become.
And coming home didn’t mean I was free. I was on a tether. I don’t skip that part when I tell my story. It was real. Someone may be living through that chapter right now and need to know their past does not have to define their future.
Then I went back to school. Late nights. Exhaustion. Wondering whether doors would stay closed no matter how hard I worked. I had to explain myself again and again to people who judged me by what they saw on paper.
Even now, I’m working at the bedside, pursuing my graduate degree, raising my family, building a foundation, and sharing some of the most painful parts of my life with the world. Writing my book meant reliving those moments, and I wasn’t fully prepared for the emotional weight of that. The healing I had already done helped me through it, but I didn’t truly grieve what happened until I began writing. I’ve learned that grief doesn’t follow an expiration date.
The struggle didn’t break me. It shaped me. Each setback asked me to find another way forward. It left scars. But I’m still here. Still building. Still rising.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a registered nurse first. I work at the bedside in med-surg, and I’ve done travel and strike assignments too. I’m also working on my graduate degree at the University of Michigan-Flint, because I’m not done yet.
Outside the hospital, I’m an author, a speaker, and a mentor. My memoir, *84 Days: The Fall*, is the first book in my trilogy. It’s the story of the night I tried to help someone who had been shot and ended up in handcuffs. I also wrote and published an article with Nurse.org, “Becoming a Nurse After Incarceration: What I Wish I Had Known,” for anyone walking the same road I did. I’ve shared my story on FOX 2 Detroit, Hot 105.9, and Faith Talk’s The Wake Up Call, and I speak on resilience, reentry, and rebuilding your life after it falls apart.
I founded the Rise Anyway Foundation for people living with the weight of trauma, incarceration, and adversity. I mentor women and young people through All Things Women and Women of Tomorrow. That work matters to me because somebody once had to believe in me before I had anything to show for it.
I think I’m known for being honest. I don’t clean my story up. I tell it the way it happened, the hard parts included, because somebody out there needs to hear the real version.
I’m most proud of my children. They lived through that season with me. They watched me fall. They watched me get back up. And I’m proud of my license. There was a time when people looked at my name and decided who I was. I became a nurse anyway. Every shift I work is proof that my past is a chapter. Not my whole story.
What sets me apart is simple. I’ve been on both sides of the door. I’ve worn the scrubs. I’ve worn the handcuffs. I’ve been the one taking care of people, and I’ve been the one nobody wanted to believe. So when I sit with a patient, a mentee, or someone just coming home, I’m not talking from a textbook.
I’m talking from what I lived.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I’ve had my share of good luck and bad luck. But faith has played the biggest role in my life.
If you want to call anything bad luck, it was the night I answered that phone call without asking more questions about what had happened. One different call, one different decision, and my life might look very different today. I’ve replayed that night more times than I can count. But I can’t put it all on luck. Fear and manipulation shaped my choices, and I take responsibility for the decisions I made.
The good luck is harder to see because it doesn’t make headlines. It’s my mother answering when I called home. It’s my children holding on to me through a painful season. It’s the mentors, therapists, life coach, and friends who believed in me before I had much to show for it, and who encouraged me to become a nurse, an author, and a leader. I didn’t make those people appear in my life. They showed up when I needed them. I call that grace.
But luck didn’t earn my BSN. Luck didn’t write my book. The people who supported me mattered deeply, but I still had to do the work. The late nights. The hard choices. The persistence. The decision to keep moving forward when quitting would have been easier.
Luck may open a door or close one. Faith is what carried me through.
What I built from there is mine.
Pricing:
- 84 Days the Fall $19.99
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shardaeburt.com
- Instagram: shardae.rn
