Madison the Physical Therapist
Please Note: The dog in the accompanying photograph is the subject of the story, but the child or teenager pictured is probably not the patient in the story.A few months after joining Love on 4 Paws, Madison and I went to our assigned floor at Childrens Hospital. The Supervisor at the nurses’ station asked us to start in the room of a teenager, who was in pain and needed physical therapy. When we entered the room we saw an unhappy and uncomfortable 16 year old girl. Two nurses were trying to help the girl turn over from her back to her side, but, because she was in so much pain, she refused to move or be moved. The nurses were standing on one side of her bed, so I put Madison in a chair right next to the other side of the bed. The nurses told the girl that they would help her roll on to her side so that she could pet Madison, and they gently pulled the girl closer to them so she would have room to roll. Suddenly, without any resistance or help from the nurses, the girl slowly rolled towards us and began petting Madison. Madison stuck out her right paw to shake hands with her new friend, and a big smile appeared on the girl’s face. The nurses later told me that they had not seen the girl smile since she had been hospitalized. Then Madison and I switched sides with the nurses, and the girl rolled on to her other side to pet Madison. The routine was repeated several times with the girl’s complete cooperation.
We had witnessed an amazing change of attitude, a new found determination, and a total lifting of the spirits of a teenage patient --- all because of a dog. When we left the room, Madison was actually prancing down the hall, glancing proudly at me, knowing that she had done something special. And I felt the same way.
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