Palliative Care

This week I attended the session of "palliative care" it takes place every Wednesday at the State Institute of Oncology. Today's topic was management of pain in patients according to WHO. I learned about the different scales that exist for classifying the pain and what are the drugs that you can use in each of the levels of pain.

This is one of the scales of pain, it is known as Visual Analog Scale (VAS):

The drug used for pain management will be according to how the patient is classified on the scale. For this, there is the WHO's Pain Ladder for adults:

The information was given to the staff of the institution is very important because all cancer patients have pain. It is necessary that we know how to manage pain or even to report it to a doctor. So we will be helping to improve the quality of life for patients with cancer. It is useful for people, we don't criticize the famous paracetamol, because it is a first-line drug for pain relief with low cost.

A difficult patient

Today arrived at the office the most difficult and clueless oncology patient that I ever seen. First, in the service of nutrition we used the method called the "pesitos" to explain the portions of food to patients. 

This patient has breast cancer and she is receiving chemotherapy. She has had several symptoms associated with her treatment, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and weakness, in addition she is obese (which can increase the symptoms). From the beginning she didn't understand the method but she didn't tell us the situation. So, she was doing a different, monotonous and low-calorie diet compared to her real diet. The patient's diet even decreased important biochemical parameters.

Even though we try to explain the "pesitos" but she began to despair, anger and shout "I do not understand anything". So we try to calm and explain as 8 times the same and then we ended up explaining to her with drawings.

The moral is "I need a lot of patience and know how to draw for this kind of patients". 

Making a healthy cookbook...

This week I had to search at different websites and writing a kind of cookbook about healthy drinks for the children and adults of the State Institute of Oncology (here is where I am doing my social service for one year), because we always give them industrialized juices for breakfast and dinner. In addition, these kind of juices are unhealthy for the patients.

When I was doing my cookbook I learned how to make some drinks (such as flavored waters) and juices that provide a lot of vitamins and minerals. 

I think that I can make and drink these beverages everyday by its content and the cost. For example, one recipe is a kind of apple soda (kids love apple sodas, at least my nephew says YES!), so you have to liquefy 1 big apple, 6 guavas, 1 teaspoon of honey and 1/2 cup of mineral water. It has the effervescent effect of soda, also it provides fiber, iron, calcium, carotene and vitamins A, B and C, useful in children with cancer that mostly have malnutrition.

P.S. Today is my best friend's birthday (: