How Embarrassment!

This is a story of an event which just so happened to occur today. My student partner and I were to ambulate an 80 y.o. man via zimmer frame, 2 days post op after an anterior resection of his bowel. As this was both our first cardio prac and we had minimal experience ambulating patients with multiple attachments, this proved more difficult than first thought. After taking time to plan our treatment area and positioning for each of the attachments (IDC, epidural, hemivac, nasogastric tube, nasal prongs) we began assisting our patient with ambulation. After a few meters he had began to speed up so we asked him to slow down, but by this stage he was now complaining that his attachments were beginning to pull. As he was unsteady on his feet, my partner and I found it difficult to both move the stand and portable oxygen, whilst guarding the patient at the same time. We decided to turn around and return him to bed but upon return his nasogastric tube had become loose and became removed as he leant forward on his zimmer frame. Despite having an understandably grumpy patient on our hands, we then had to inform the nurse, and as expected this did not go down well at all. This was a lesson learnt the hard way that we will never forget. Moral of the story, always carry tape and safety pins with you on a surgical ward! You will need these to pin the various attachments to the patient’s gown.