There weren’t a lot of patients to see at the big hospital on this week’s therapy cat visit. But there were lots of family and loads of staff who wanted to visit with me.
My first stop was up at Pediatrics. They only had two patients, and one was in isolation. So we visited the boy. He was maybe 13, and he was very sick. His parents hovered over him, along with a nurse who was changing his IV. The nurse paused her work so we could visit. Since he was my first visit of the day, it took me a few moments, but I finally settled down and curled up next to him.
Since we had extra time, we stopped by the residents’ work room on our way to the elevator. And a couple of them squealed when they opened the door and saw me! A couple of them pulled out their phones and took photos. My human showed them I could shake paws, so one of them filmed me doing that.
Normally, it would have been time for me to go to Behavioral Medicine, but they weren’t having pet therapy this week, so I went to Labor and Delivery instead. Most of their patients weren’t feeling well, so I just visited with the nurses. They always love seeing me there!
Our last visit of the day was in Rehab. I usually don’t get to visit there because of my Behavioral Medicine commitment, but I had time today. And they had two patients for me. One of them was a middle-aged woman who was surrounded by family. One woman — a friend or sister maybe — was styling her hair. A couple of men were visiting too, and after I was done curling up with the woman, one of the guys wanted to see me too.
My final patient was a bedridden woman who had two cats at home she was missing. I was happy to spend time with her, and she was really nice. It sounded like she was going to go home in a couple days, so that was good.
Even though there were just a handful patients, it turned out to be a really busy day!
