I was so excited I passed my first NG tube. It is something I never really wanted to do. You get a 5 minute talk on it in uni and that's when you are let loose on patients. I didn't have many good experience in passing them. I have forced myself to do it a few times. Usually they come poking out of there mouth like a little snake which is pretty distressing for the patient and even more for me when the student I was with is shouts "its coming out of her mouth, Oh my god I can see it".
The next attempt was in the middle of the night for a lady who was having persistent nausea and the night SHO decided an Anderson tube for sooking out the contents of her stomach would be a good idea. So I tried to pass a tube , remembering an Anderson tube is about twice the girth of a NG tube and managed to put her heart rate off the scale into SVT and needed to get external carotid vein massage to bring it down...whoops.
Another time I had to pick a bogey that was like a stone out of a mans nose before the tube could even go into his nostril. I kept the bogey in a universal container for ages as a training tool for the students but someone stole it. I don't know what they thought it was....Yuk.
Another time I was passing a tube with sister and she managed to get it into the patients lung and she was going blue and coughing a lot and I had to say I think u might be in the lung and when we got it check xrayed, wala it was in her lung but scarily enough when we aspirated it, it showed us pH results that it was in the stomach.
Also lots of people when you start to put it in they freak out and don't let it get even to the top of their nose and they have had enough.
But last time I was at work (which was a while ago as I am on holiday) I managed to do a textbook insertion, it was amazing. The other nurses were discussing who was going to do it , I got the stuff walked in there and wham bam a few swallows and it was there. On my own no one to see my lovely slick work as usual. 50mls of air gurgling lovely in his belly and he is ready to feed. Job done I was very proud of myself , one of my fears conquered.
