A woman whose sister-in-law died of cancer is herself diagnosed with breast cancer after a mammogram. Her doctor has advised a lumpectomy followed by radiation and chemotherapy.
The patient is awaiting surgical, oncology, and radiation consults and is scheduled for surgery the day after tomorrow. She tearfully tells the nurse, I keep thinking about how there is something growing inside me that could kill me. It's like living with a bomb inside you, and you don't know if or when it's going to go off.. Which nursing intervention would be most likely to be helpful? a. Interact frequently with the patient, and provide books and games to help her stay busy and distract her from her negative thinking.
b. Validate her feelings, and with her permission, have a member of a breast cancer survivor's support group visit her in her hospital room.
c. Provide support and validate her feelings, then offer to have the hospital chaplain stop by to talk with her.
d. Sympathize with her concerns, but remind the patient that she has not even had the surgery yet, and the treatments may well rid her of cancer.
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