I'm a bit stumped for nursing diagnoses for my patient this past week. She was something of an unusual patient for pulmonary embolism. Patient is 31 yr old female, smoker, overweight. Came to ER with upper left chest pain and coughing. All blood work came back normal except for elevated D-dimer levels. CXR was normal. CTA found 3 small pulmonary emboli in the left lung and one in the right. Lovenox and Coumadin were administered. Patient was not on oxygen and had pulse ox 96%. No pain. No coughing during our shift. Up and active. No recent travel or illnesses. Stay-at-home mom of 4 so very active. Head-to-toe all normal assessments. Being discharged the next day with Lovenox.
So abnormal conditions are elevated D-dimer, CTA results, presented with pain and cough that had resolved. Where do I go with this? The only thing I thought of so far was Anxiety r/t possibility of recurrent embolism. I must be missing something obvious!
brillohead, ADN, RN
1,781 Posts
Sorry I haven't been back to this thread in a while.
FDGB = Fall Down Go Boom
My brain is so full of acronyms these days it's a wonder I can still speak English!