Chronic Illness Reflection Essay

Running head: Chronic Illness
Chronic Illness
Reflection Essay

1
Chronic Illness
According to Caffery and Pasero (1999), the definition of pain is highly unpleasant
physical sensation which is suffered by a person due to an injury or illness which also include
mental suffering. The nurses have to explore the thinking and feelings of the patient who is in
pain to help them appropriately (Nurwidya, Syahruddin, & Yunus, 2016). The nurse is the person
who helps the patient in dealing with the pain by using different methods. This essay will focus
on pain of a 60-year-old patient named Mrs Drew. In this case, the reflective style GIBBS will be
used in order to support the framework and structure of the essay.
Description: I visited Mrs Drew a few times within the month when she was torn by
knowing that she had “lung cancer” and she did not want to take the oral opiates regularly as
recommended. Mrs Drew had taken Chemotherapy for ten months but cancer came again and
spread on her spine area, and this is the area where she felt most pain (Ferrell, 2011). There have
been many bad days and nights when she woke up in the middle of the night haunted by this
chronic illness. She became nauseous several times; she also felt a lot of pain and to lower such
pain she was taking painkillers on a regular basis. While taking these medicines, she becomes
dependent on them, and she realised that her life is not going the way she wanted. After listening
to her issues, I explained to her that these are negative implications of this disease. Mrs Drew
was worried that she would become addictive to the drugs or medicines that she was taking. I
explained to her that people with the disease usually do not get addictive to the medicines to
relax her. Mr Drew was worried that her wife wanted to sleep for the whole day, but he
continued to support her. I helped them out to ensure that they are able to perform their day-to-
day operations while fulfilling Mrs Drew’s requirements.
The major issue which was necessary to be taken care was the spine pain of Mrs Drew.
Her husband used to massage her when she complains about the pain. I assured them that she
would be in charge of the analgesia, and she would be able to decide according to her wish
(Gwyther, 2014). Mrs Drew said that she did not want to use Morphine and rather use the heat
packs during the day so that she spent the day with her husband. I listened to her requests and
assured her that I understand her situation and needs. Mrs Drew was in constant pain, yet she did
not want to rely on the medicines and did not want to stay at home all day doing nothing.
Instead, she wanted to do things normally (Temel, Gallagher, Jackson, & Blinderman, 2010).