Do your best to make your patient comfortable and to ease their fears.

Megan was diagnosed with leukemia, underwent a stem cell transplant and chemotherapy, and was at the hospital for an infusion treatment to begin replacing her stem cells. This appointment was a few days after the stem cell transplant, where she was also told that she would be unable to conceive. Megan was having severe abdominal pain, possibly a side-effect of one of the 64 medications she was taking. A CT scan was ordered to see what was going on. The nurse's first question was, ”Are you pregnant? Because we don't want to give you a million-dollar scan only to find out that you're pregnant and have other issues." Megan assured the nurse that it was not possible for her to be pregnant. After waiting for the scan as an outpatient for several hours, Megan was admitted to the hospital and she'd have the scan as an inpatient. Later that evening Megan was told that her first nurse had never ordered the scan, so now she was at the bottom of the list. This doesn't sound too horrendous except that an abdominal CT scan needs to be done after fasting, so Megan had not eaten since the night before. Eventually, her new nurse saw that she was extremely uncomfortable, and she said that the scan wasn't that urgent and could wait until morning. She brought Megan a sandwich.