I got to have my therapy cat visit at the children’s hospital this week. This is usually a pretty easy job for me, since most patients love seeing a kitty. And the facility has so many fun activities that nobody sees a cat showing up as that odd.

The lobby was a little quiet when I arrived, but there was an older teen girl and her mom waiting for their appointment. My human set me on the table in front of them, but I immediately jumped onto the couch to see them instead. The girl was really nice, and I gave her a headbutt.

I spent about 45 minutes in the exam rooms and met lots of different kids. I saw toddler twins in one room who stared at me with saucer eyes. You’d think they never saw a cat before, but their mom told us they had one at home. They seemed to like me but were too shy to pet me.

One child who definitely wasn’t shy was a charming little girl in a pink cast. That was a fun visit, as was the next girl. She had injured her wrist doing a cartwheel and I hung out for a little while as the doctor discussed the injury with the girl’s mom.

I had one brief but unusual visit. There was an “interpreter” sign in front of the room. Usually when the patients don’t speak English natively, my human can still explain that I’m a therapy cat. But this time when she tried, an AI woman on a monitor translated her words into the patient’s language! It actually made our job easier and saved a lot of confusion. The whole family happily visited with me for a few minutes and even spoke a few English words about how pretty I was.

Our last visit before heading to the surgery area was a tween boy with an injured leg. He had a cat at home, so he enjoyed me quite a bit.

I always spend a few minutes visiting the nurses in the surgery area before seeing the patients waiting for surgery. This time my human didn’t think we’d be able to spend time with anyone since the kids waiting all seemed to be napping on their gurneys. But when we went back down the row, one teen girl was awake and on her phone and she was really happy I was there. It was a really pleasant visit, and I think I made a lot of kids (and their parents) happy!