My therapy cat visit this week was at the big hospital, but it was so quiet it was almost eerie. The Cancer Center was empty — even the nurse wasn’t there. And Pediatrics was empty. The nurse there told my human they’d discharged their two patients earlier and were expecting one from emergency later. That’s way fewer than we normally see there.
So we stopped by Labor and Delivery. They did have patients, but none available for visits. We did visit with some nurses, though. They always appreciate seeing the therapy animals.
Next we went down to rehab, and only one patient wanted to visit. It was an older Spanish speaking lady with her forearm in a cast. She assumed my human knew Spanish too because apparently she’s mastered the two sentences she knows quite well! Fortunately the lady was being looked after by a nurse who was fluent so between the three of them they were all able to chat. The nurse had cats at home and he talked a lot about them! Everyone had fun, and the patient petted me the whole time.
Our Thursday visits almost always involve stopping by Behavioral Medicine, and they had two patients for me. They were very young girls, just teenagers. One was very quiet and withdrawn and she just wanted to sit and observe. She didn’t want to interact with me, or really, anyone else. She wasn’t unpleasant or in a bad mood — just deep inside herself. The other girl was sweetly happy to pet me, but she was very quiet too. My human had me give her paw shakes and let her give me treats. I think they were both glad to have a break from their time in the ward.
Even though it was kind of disappointing to have no one to visit at the beginning, the patients we did wind up seeing more than made up for that.
