title: [Providing care to an elephant leg patient: a nurse's experience].
abstract: This article reports on the experience of nurses who provided nursing care to a woman who had recently immigrated to Taiwan from Mainland China. The woman suffered from chronic lymphedema, and had previously received surgical treatment for the condition. The period of nursing care ran from June 10th through September 9th, 2008. Nursing care experience focused on the two care issues of anxiety and health seeking behavior. During the nursing process, we expressed empathy, encouraged the patient to express her feelings, and provided disease-related information. We successfully resolved the patient's anxiety problem. The patient learned to use distraction to help relieve pain. The patient also participated in a rehabilitation program to improve her blood circulation. We tracked the patient's rehabilitation progress through e-mail correspondence. We hope that this complete nursing experience can serve as reference in caring for patients facing similar problems in the future.
authors.affiliation: General Surgery, Department of Nursing, Taipei Medical University-Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University.
authors.forename: Tsai-Hsin
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Chin-Yun
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ming-Li
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008209:Lymphedema / Q000451:nursing* / Q000601:surgery