Even though it’s been a busy week for her, my human felt it was important that we visit the big hospital on Christmas Day. After all, who wants to be a hospital patient on Christmas? Or work on that day, for that matter? So we scheduled it a few weeks ago.

And we did see a lot of staff. We stopped by to see the residents and they were surprised and happy to see me! A couple of them had never seen me before, and didn’t know a cat came to visit the hospital.

We also stopped by Labor and Delivery, and they always love seeing me. Although they were having a pretty quiet day, they had patients they were caring for, so I was a nice lunchtime break for them.

The most patients I saw were in the Rehab area. The first one I saw was a nonverbal woman who had two older people visiting her. I think they were her parents.

When the nurse asked if they wanted to see me, they were confused at first and said no. But then the patient stood in the doorway in her hospital gown and saw me. And she wanted to see me. So we wound up having a really nice visit.

Both my human and I connect well with nonverbal people. I know why I do — I’m a kitty, I don’t need words. For my human, I think it’s a relief not to have to make small talk, and it makes the visits more meaningful to her. We can connect on a level that doesn’t need conversation.

The second room we saw had two patients in it, both Spanish speaking. The first woman and her family didn’t really want to see me. But it was totally different with the other patient. When she saw me, her face lit up in that special way when a cat person sees me.

Since it was a quiet day for us, I spent a lot of time on the bed with this woman, and I think she got a lot of out of having me there. I’m glad my human didn’t have to rush me off to other rooms.

The last person we saw there was the daughter of a patient. She and her mother actually wanted to see a dog instead of a cat. So my human told her the schedule for our therapy organization, and let her know that if there was pet therapy over the weekend, it would be a dog. In addition to my own therapy work, my human’s job is to be helpful and answer questions about the therapy visits.

Whenever we can schedule therapy cat visit on holidays, we do. My human doesn’t have family, and her boyfriend doesn’t have anyone local either. So it’s easy for us to do, and probably the best way to spend a holiday.

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