Assessment Visit 1
12/17/10

       On December 17th I made my first “Pet Visit” to the hospital at Stoneridge, which is called the Avalon Building. At the beginning of the trip, I walked into Stoneridge and I had to find the place where I met the person I spoke to on the phone, Laura, who told me what to do. She specifically instructed me not to go into some rooms, but to feel free to go into all the others. Consequently, I started off down the hall into one of the four wings of the hospital, and then I made my first pet visit to a man who looked very in need of one. When I first walked in, he was crouched over looking at the floor but when he saw Sidney, my dog, he looked up and seemed to feel better because he started talking to me about the dogs he used to have and much more. I then went into a room with a lady lying in bed watching TV. She looked fine until I noticed that she had just had one leg amputated, but, nevertheless, she too looked happy to see Sidney. Finally, after visiting many more people, I met one woman in the Recreation room, Alice. Alice really loved my dog and he sat in her lap for about fifteen minutes while she petted him. Inside, while all of this was going on, I was actually very nervous. It was very scary when you passed a door with gloves outside of it, the signal not to go into the room, that the person in there is probably about to die. Also, I was very nervous to go into rooms because you never know what you might find inside. All in all, it was a very good trip in which I made many people happy, and most of the people said I should make sure to come back.