Nursing deals with working with the unknown and unpredictable and learning to make theories to make rapid diagnosis to treat a disease as soon as possible. The thing with medicine is that, it is very broad. Its not black or white, its grey, and a lot of it. And we have to make the best with our practice and knowledge to figure out which direction is the sign and symptoms leaning to to help medical professionals to decide what treatment plan to initiate. It
Very sweet gentle man got admitted, had localized left upper chest pain, that was also warm to touch and redness at the site where a pacemaker was placed a month ago. He started having nausea, and stated he had a temperature of 101.6F. But during his admission he was normal. He did felt cold, and felt the chills. Initially we did cultures for the flu, blood and urine to figure out what type of bug is in his system. Did a chest x-ray to see whats going on underneath, figure out what meds he was on. make sure his vitals signs were stable. And at this point, we treated him for symptoms, trying to avoid Tylenol which is great for fever but we want to know if a real fever is going on or is it his defense system that is activated which gives him a low-grade fever (which means his body is fighting the bug).
Your body automatically heats up on purpose as a defense mechanism to try to kill the organism. So we try not to take away that defense system unless your temperature raises above 101F, because at this point your body cannot tolerate the heat for that long above that temperature. And the only way we can bring down the temperature in most cases is by Tylenol if they don't have a liver disease and/or using cold therapy.
Patient was laying quietly after his admission for about 6 hours, and as soon as he walked to the restroom, a massive storm of chills occurred, we took his temperature and it was elevated above 101F. We treated him with Tylenol, cold therapy, and antibiotics at this point and were waiting for the meds and his body to start to respond. And the chills was something he just needed to ride, like being on a roller coaster that you don't want to be on, but you have to deal with it until it is over. Fever usually follows with chills, than a massive sweat, and then your temperature eventually cools down because of the sweat. For 30-60 mins, that patient was experience chills and it was so uncomfortable to watch but we had to be side by side holding his hand and reassuring him that everything is OK. Even though the look in his eyes holding an unbearable look, no knowing. We did absolutely everything we could if his infection was uncontrolled he would have probably needed medications to control his blood pressure because everything vasodilates during a massive infection and your body is unable to compensate. but at this point I just gave report to the upcoming nurse where she took over. And as I walk to my car, all I can think of is, the look of "not knowing" that he gave me, the look of "I'm I going to be okay?" and that's all I could think of in my heart "your gonna be OK" but not wanting to give him false hope either, all you can do is hold his hand in silence and give a non-verbal reassurance and let him know that regardless, your not alone, and I'm gonna be right here!
