Donna Frost

Chapter 6 182 was not broken; open questions; acknowledgement of emotions and content. We felt and experienced, as both observers of and participants in these nursing encounters, warmth, gentleness, openness, acceptance, connectedness, patience, valuing and often humour. There was also in many cases an ebbing away of tension. Sometimes this was palpable in the moment, at other times it was afterwards that it became obvious that the tension was gone. Patients or family members felt this release of tension too, and expressed it in a number of different ways. A man with metastatic prostate cancer was seen, for example, by Wendy, the APN who would be his first contact at the outpatient clinic. During the appointment the focus lay on setting up the relationship and making plans for both scheduled and patient-request check-ups, and answering any questions the patient had at this stage. There were no changes made to the hormone therapy regime that he would be starting on. He chose the association card shown in Figure 6 . 3 when describing how he felt at the close of this first appointment with Wendy. “It’s not easy being here, in this place, I don’t feel myself really and I am on my guard, but now it feels okay. For that reason the red and orange [pointing to the card] – good, warm colours. But the main reason is the four-leaf clover, here. Well, my luck’s changed hasn’t it?! Yes, really. That’s why I picked this card. I am going home with a different feeling now and I am happy about it. […] Sometimes you know that you are in good hands and it makes a difference to be taken seriously.” (NPI- 2013 Pat 11 Con-pp 2 - 3 )