Kat 103.7 Radiothon for Children's Nebraska: THRIVE Program - David Huskey and Howie The Therapy Dog

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Well, I've been here. Children's coming up on ten years.
I started our Thrife program in twenty seventeen, and at
that point in time, it was just a ragtag interdisciplinary
group of folks that said, we've got to do better
and taking care of our caregivers and the stresses and

(00:23):
the challenges that they face in healthcare. And then of
course the pandemic hit, and what had always been simmering
on the back burder with healthcare stress got brought to
a full boil, and I think the whole world got
to see Howie and I's particular area is the emotional

(00:45):
well being and mental health of our workforce. Now I
want to make it clear how he is a dog.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Those listening right now, let me say he's half human
and a half dog, But how he is a seventy
pound golden retree.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
You have one particular story about a nurse and how
he noticed something. Tell us about that. As I went
to leave, I got to her doorway, and how he
put on the brakes. He just did a hard stop.
He was not leaving her office. And it dawned on
me that he knows something I don't know, and so

(01:22):
I let go of the leash, and he went over
and he just laid his head in her lap and
it got real quiet, and after a few moments, she
was obviously she wanted to say something, but her chin
started quivering and then the tears started coming. And turns out,
for her, it wasn't just those cases on the unit

(01:46):
that there were other things going on with work, and
that very day, her dad, who lived six hundred miles away,
was being put on hospice, and she had that guilt
of you know, I'm not able to be there with
my mom, I'm not able to be there with my dad,
and all of those complicated feelings, and he pulled those

(02:09):
out and he created a safe moment for her to
be human and how he kind of created that moment
for her