Healing Purrs and High Fives

My human always tries to have a therapy cat visit scheduled for me during Thanksgiving week. A couple of times we visited on Thanksgiving day, but this year it was the day before Thanksgiving at the children’s hospital.

After visiting with some people in the lobby, including a young woman in a motorized wheelchair, we headed for the exam rooms. Most of the kids this visit were there with injured limbs. I’m always happy to meet everyone, but occasionally there’s someone who I really gravitate to. The first boy was like that. He was a young teen with a hand injury, so he was a little shy about giving me a high five. So I gave him a paw shake instead, and a headbutt. Plus I purred a lot for him.

The next boy I saw was younger, and I’d seen him briefly in the lobby when we were signing in. He had such a nice smile and was so cheerful. He was fun to meet too.

There is one set of rooms where they put the patients with casts, and they were almost all full. There was a mom and little girl in one room, and the mom was so happy to see me! The girl was a bit shy, but warmed up to me. I suspect the mom was the one who really wanted to see me! Another room contained a mom whose child was in a stroller. When she said she didn’t speak English, my human explained in Spanish that I was a therapy cat, and then she invited me in! That was a nice visit.

The last patient we saw in an exam room was an older teenaged girl and her mom and they asked my human lots of questions about harness and leash training because they wanted to give it a try with their cat. So my human showed them my harness and gave them some tips on how best to do it.

I love the patients I see at the children’s hospital. And just about all of them love me back.

Here are some other times I visited the kids: