I had one more therapy cat visit scheduled for 2025. For this one, my human and I picked the children’s hospital. We thought it would be a good place to end the year.

We started right away in the elevator, which we shared with a dad and his little girl. My human asked if they were going to rehab or surgery, and it turned out the girl’s brother was in post op. We were headed for surgery too.

The surgery section had lots of pre and post op patients! So I had quite a bit of work up there. Not always with the kids. The first little girl didn’t really want to see me, but her mom sure did! I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to spend time with the parents. You can imagine how stressed out they are when their kids are injured or unwell. Especially on surgery days.

We also saw a baby who was honestly a little oblivious to me, although he sure liked the teddy bear the nurse showed him. The teenage girl in another room was more interested and asked lots of polite questions about me and my work.

As we were finishing up, we saw the dad and his daughter again. His son was still sedated, so the little girl spent time petting me. And I thought the dad needed some attention too so I gave his leg a headbutt.

It was busy in the lobby area and exam rooms too. I paused to show off my bell ringing trick to a couple of kids in the lobby before visiting patients in the rooms.

I had all sorts of kids to see. One baby, not much older than the one in surgery, showed a lot of interest in me. So his mom encouraged him to pet me. It’s always good to have the young kids pet me, since it’s a learning experience for them in so many ways.

I also saw a little boy who fussed about having to take off his sweatshirt (his mom’s husband was more interested in me than he was!), and we finished off with a teen girl.

The hospital scheduled the girl to have surgery on her leg in a few days. So she and her mom were getting instructions about pre and post op care from the staff. It was a lot of information! I sat next to the girl and she petted me almost the whole time. I think it helped keep her centered because there was so much to think about.

Sometimes my visits are like that. It’s almost never a matter of being a calming presence for people (young and old) who are in pain or extremely emotional. That happens sometimes, but more often it’s just being there to smooth out a day or to add a teaching moment to a medical visit. Or just to make people smile. And it’s more important than you might realize.

I look forward to doing lots more visits in 2026.

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