'Bed Number Ten': Q&A

NUR 406
Bed Number Ten Assignment
Instructions: After reading the book Bed Number Ten, complete the questions and assignments below. This must be typed and completed by the FIRST DAY of CLASS by 5:00pm in the drop box on D2L. Drop Box labeled: Bed Number Ten Spring 2013.
1. What is the cause of this patient’s illness?
The patient had recently suffered from an infection.

2. How does she get the diagnosis?
The patient goes through a series of tests, but the diagnosis is realized through a spinal tap.

3. What was her first symptom?
The patient’s first symptom was feelings of numbness in her feet.

4. What range of emotions did the patient experience throughout the illness and recovery?
The patient experienced a wide range of emotions from sadness, depression, hopelessness, and helplessness in the beginning, and an increasing feeling of hope through recovery.

5. How did she cope with the emotions?
There was not much the patient could do to cope with emotions because she did not have the ability to move any part of her body. Because of this, the patient spent a lot of time daydreaming, and imagining she was somewhere else other than in the hospital. She would spend a lot of time re-living past events which were pleasant in her memories.

6. How did her family cope with her hospitalization?
The patient’s family tried to go on with their lives as if she wasn’t sick. Her husband would spend time filling in for events which she would have normally attended. Her daughter, as well, ran functions on her own instead of cancelling them.

7. What nursing diagnosis would be appropriate for this patient?
Risk for skin breakdown r/t insufficient attention paid to mucosa AEB constant oral drainage.

8. What tests are currently done to assist with the diagnosis, today?
Today, Nerve conduction velocity (NCV) tests can be done as well as testing CSF for more protein than normal.

9. How did you cope with reading this book?
At times, this book was hard to read because of some of the nurse’s blatant disregard to the patient. It was hard to imagine that someone in her state could just be ignored. In fact, at times, I believed her husband did a better job of being her nurse than the actual nurses. At other times, though, I was very impressed by the amount of detail some of the nurses went into when caring for the patient.