Making Patients Comfortable

On my fourth visit, we had two patients that we kept after. One patient was newly diagnosed, and the other patient had been very far into his diagnosis and is not responding to treatment well. My focus for the night was to differentiate the different types of care given to the newly diagnosed patient and a patient being made comfortable. The newly diagnosed patient started her first round of chemo, and had already developed a rash head-to-toe from the medication. The sicker patient, who’s cancer has not become better during treatment had swelling in his feet and a rash head-to-toe. The sicker patient had a Thoracentesis procedure done that same day to drain the fluid from his lungs. I learned that the cause of this may be from all of the IV fluid pumped into his body, and the only way to treat this at his stage is to drain it to keep the patient comfortable, and to keep giving fluid to replace the fluid he is losing. It is logical to keep giving him fluid as hydration is important when going through treatment. The main difference I had notice in the care of the patients was that the nurses were most concerned with the sicker patient’s vitals and making him comfortable, and focused on rushing treatment for the newer patient to try to kill the cancer quicker.