Hospital Visit

 With a heading like that, you'd probably think there was some sort of emergency or urgent health issue that we needed to go to the hospital.  Fortunately we are all healthy and well.  The hospital visit was by request of a palliative patient's family.  

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely lady who has a life-long passion for horses.  Unfortunately her presence in this world will soon come to an end, but it was an absolute pleasure to be able to take Jasmine to the hospital to meet her and spend some time visiting.  It was very thoughtful of her family to tell hospital management about her interests so they could connect with me and we could make the visit happen.  

Balloons didn't bother her at all, it's just me who doesn't like them!

After our priority visit, we did go through the rest of the hospital, to probably 3/4 of the patient rooms, Emergency Department and visited with almost all of the staff.  Pictures galore.  I could definitely feel a difference in morale in the facility after our rounds.  I'm so glad that I can share this special experience. 

Now, I'm looking towards setting up site visits at other sites.  We're booked into Barrhead long-term care at the end of September.  Ideally, I'd like to visit a site a month, be able to do a bit of a costume, and take some appropriate treats for staff and patients/residents.  It's a lot of work (lord is it ever..) but it's the most rewarding thing at the same time!  

To bring Jasmine to Westlock, it takes roughly 3 hours of driving, altogether, an hour getting her cleaned up and ready, and 2 - 2.5 hours for visiting. With the prohibitive cost of gas, I'm afraid that I won't be able to fulfill all the visitation requests.  I've started a gofundme campaign and have received some early support from kind friends.  With some assistance, I'm pursuing funding requests from various societies and unions.  Hopefully the support will allow us to continue to spread joy and bring up morale.  It's been so much working in healthcare the last few years... The novelty of a pony in the site seems to make a huge difference for staff and those in care.  

And yes, that's her own ID badge on her harness.

Happy Horseing!