Compassion implies to suffer with, and has been demarcated as a deep mindfulness of the suffering of another combined with the wish to get rid of it. Compassion is good for both patients and their healthcare providers; hence, an essential constituent in quality patient care (Sinclair et al., 2016). Since last year, I have been taking care of my aunt who was diagnosed with gall stones; a condition whereby lumps develop in the gall bladder and sometimes bile duct, blocking the passage of bile from the liver. She started by complaining of a sharp pain on the right side of the abdomen below the ribs that takes hours to ease. She had not been experiencing the pain before and so it baffled us, and I used to numb the pain with a wet towel around her rib area.
She gradually felt pain in the right shoulder accompanied by back pain between the shoulder blades. This trend continued with restlessness, nausea, and excessive sweating, as I monitored her temperature, until when it worsened we took her to hospital. Diagnosis concluded that she had gallstones, which had inflamed the gall bladder. She opted for Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatolography, and was left in our care at home. I used to constantly ask her if the earlier pain was again progressing, and it seemed it had gradually ceased, although sometimes she had difficulties sitting up by her right side.
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Therefore, I helped her in almost all the activities that required mobility like taking her to the bathroom, exercising, and stretching her feet. I even helped to uplift her spirits by engaging her in conversations and jokes, and enlightening her about how her high uptake of fatty foods may have been the cause of the gall stones. Besides giving her medication, I prepared her meals which were strictly, and still are low-fat and high fiber. Although she does not prefer vegetables, I leave her no option, as I supplement the sweet delicacies she used to take with fruits and nuts.
Other ways I think I could have expressed caring to my aunt is by educating her about the risks of fatty foods and high cholesterol foods uptake in the development of gall stones. Moreover, I could have told her that the risk of gall stones being higher in females than males. My thinking about compassion expands to include self and colleagues because Sinclair and others (2016) indicate that compassionate feelings yield positive consequences, and stimulates regions of the brain linked to reward, love, and affiliation. Usually, patients consider compassion as founded on acts that reveal human relationships of knowing a patient and giving them time (Curtis, 2015).
References
Curtis, K. (2015). Compassion is an essential component of good nursing care and can be conveyed through the smallest actions. BMJ Journals , 18 (3). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/eb-2014-102025
Sinclair, S., Beamer, K., Hack, T., McClement, S., Raffin Bouchal, S., Chochinov, H., & Hagen, N. (2016). Sympathy, empathy, and compassion: A grounded theory study of palliative care patients’ understandings, experiences, and preferences. Palliative Medicine , 31 (5), 437-447. doi: 10.1177/0269216316663499
