(I’m cheating on this post. We have to respond to questions in an online discussion group for class. Instead of writing a post about my week here, I’m just copying my response to the group. Mwa haha, I’m so clever).

* Describe your patient assignment this week. What was the child’s diagnosis, treatment, nursing challenges?
I cared for a three year old girl with neuroblastoma. She was here for a 4 day course of chemotherapy, I cared for her on the third and fourth day. The first day she was very quiet, sleeping a lot, not feeling well. Her father was at the bedside and I get the feeling he wasn’t thrilled about that. Not involved in care. The second day her mother came in the afternoon and the girl perked up immensely. Suddenly she was all about playing and talking. Very fun and sweet.
With her chemotherapy her I&O’s are extremely important. her kidneys get blasted so you want to keep fluids going through her. We had her on D5W + ½ NS + 20 mEq KCL round the clock. We weighed her diapers and measured emesis to make sure her output was at least 45 m/hr per orders. Otherwise you replace ml per ml. She also has a strict regimen of fluids and electrolytes after her chemo, which was during the night shift so I didn’t really get to see that.

* What was your most significant thing learned during week #2? (In other words, an “aha” moment!)
First to answer some of the group’s questions, the oncology patients are here for various amounts of time. Like I said, my girl was here for a specific course and many are like that. In for a week at a time every month or two. Another child I cared for was here since he was diagnosed 9 days ago. My nurse also had a patient in the BMT (bone marrow transplant) unit so I got to shadow the care there. It was an 11 year old girl with aplastic anemia (her marrow stopped making all types of cells). She had a 10 day course of chemo, then go a transplant of stem cells from cord blood, and now was waiting for her body to respond. It can take just a week or two to work, but she’s been here in isolation for 34 days now with no response. They talked another a kid who took 120 days for his body to start producing. They also had a 18 month old kid who had been the hospital since birth. So the length of stay on our unit can vary quite a bit.
I’m not sure I had an aha moment, but obviously I’m already learning a lot about oncology care. I got tons of practice giving IV medications (working with the tubes, doing calculations). I also had some variety with my little 3 year old – getting assessments while she sleeps and getting assessments while she’s talking and jumping and playing with my steth (including banging the bell with it in my ears – OUCH!). You have to make special accommodations to get the information you need. You have to be creative and flexible.