The exam rooms were busy at the children’s hospital this week! So I spent my whole visit going from room to room.

This time we started with the POPS (Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services) rooms, and the first patient I saw was a very nice tween boy. His mother told my human he was a little shy because he was autistic. The thing is, a lot of times autistic children are drawn to me, and even though he was reluctant to pet me, he looked at me with a small, warm smile. It was subtle, but my human instinctively sensed the connection too.

In the next room we visited with a small boy. My human guessed he was about four. He happily got on the floor with me and we hung out until a staff member came in. She asked the boy some questions, including his birthday. When he said 2018, my human was surprised because he was nowhere near the size of a normal 7-year-old boy. She guessed his size may have had something to do with why he was there.

One teen girl I visited was having her injured leg looked at. She petted me nonstop while my human chatted with her dad…who also had an injured leg!

A fun, giggly little girl we visited came in because she had an accident on her scooter and hurt her arm. Her dad chatted with the doctor who was doing the surgery. They asked her what color cast she wanted and she said red, to match the Halloween costume she planned to wear. Once they were done going over the details, the dad looked at the girl and cheerfully admonished her, “I hope you learned your lesson.” She just grinned.

The last boy we saw was about 13. The staff member who came in asked him and his mom some questions about mental health. That’s unusual for this particular hospital. But like the first boy we saw, he had a connection with me that went deeper than it does with most kids.

It was an interesting day, and I had a lot of fun moments.

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