Oncology Patterns

This past summer I had been working on the oncology floor as a nursing extern. There is one patient I will never forget. This patient had come in with stage four brain cancer. I remember the other nurses talking to me about how they remembered the same patient coming in two years earlier. She was diagnosed with stage two cancer on that day. Her husband, her two children, and her five grandchildren came into visit her often. She was getting radiation and steroids to see if that would help with the brain tumors. Each day she was drinking less and becoming more unarousable. After careful consideration the family decided to put her on comfort measures and take her home on hospice. The husband talked to us about how the week before she was in Florida vacationing with her family. He showed us pictures and told us many family stories. She went home on hospice, and the next day the husband came in to the hospital to let us know she had passed. He thanked us for all the care we gave to his wife and family. …show more content…
I learned how to take care of a dying patient, but I also learned how to support the family. This situation was very hard to deal with. I remember a lot of the nurses being upset because they had remembered her from earlier. The patient wasn’t talking so I had to learn the best way to communicate with her. She did pretty well with shaking her head yes or no for the first couple days. But that was the only communication we got from her. I learned about comfort care measures and how to take care of a dying patient. I worked for all three days that she was in the hospital. I helped every day to bath her and make sure she was in a comfortable position. When she showed signs of pain I would go get the RN to give her