Therapy dogs W
Volunteer Melissa Kurz and her dog Oscar visit a terminally ill patient at Baptist Health.
38
.
.
SOCIAL DATEBOOK & CHARITY REGISTER
hen Melissa Kurz, a World Golf Village resident, was involved in a devastating accident that required lengthy surgery and hospital stays, she could not have guessed her injuries would both save her life and go on to improve the lives of others. Kurz, the first volunteer with Baptist’s P.A.W.S. pet therapy program, said that the accident led doctors to discover that she had the rarest of all brain illnesses. And, her sharp yearning for her pooches, eight-year-old Bandit, the cockapoo, and Rocky, the five-year-old cavapoo, in the weeks she was being treated led her to become the first pet therapy volunteer ever at the hospital. Kurz, now 34, said she was 27 when she was in a major car wreck that required bilateral jaw surgery and that later led a Baptist Health neurologist to diagnose with her with an exceedingly uncommon condition that likely would have killed or crippled her. “When I went to the hospital for my jaw and a herniated disk, they found something in my brain,” she said. “It is the rarest brain disease in the entire world, Moyamoya.” The accident then became a blessing in disguise. “If we had not found the Moyamoya, I would have either not survived or had a stroke that was catastrophic. It was a God thing.” Moyamoya disease is a rare, progressive cerebrovascular disorder caused by blocked arteries at the base of the brain in an area called the basal ganglia, according to the National Institutes of Health. Without surgery,
BY JENNIFER EDWARDS
most people who have it experience mental decline and multiple strokes because of the narrowing of arteries and bleeding in the brain. After diagnosis and treatment, Kurz decided to give back by becoming involved in pet therapy, and the nonprofit pet therapy association Pet Partners directed her to help the hospital where she was diagnosed. “I did my evaluation and it happened to be at one of the Baptist properties down here and they said they had just opened the program,” Kurz said. “Everyone knows there are dogs for Wolfson, the children’s hospital, but no one knows there are dogs at Baptist, the adult hospital.” Kathy Burns, chairwoman of the P.A.W.S. program at Baptist Medical Center, also known as the Grace Andersen Pet Visitation Program, said the program began in 2015 as a result of Ms. Andersen’s gift. Kurz began the next year and it has since grown from two official volunteers last year to six with one more in training. Kathy Burns, P.A.W.S. chair, said that dog-and-owner teams each visit twice a month on weekdays and that it would be “awesome” if the program grew to 16 teams. “It’s a wonderful goal. That means almost every day of the week we would have a dog there in the morning and a dog there in the afternoon. We are actively recruiting new teams.” She said that Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Baptist Health both have separate pet therapy programs that mirror each other. At Wolfson, dogs visit kids, and at Baptist Health, they visit adults.
PHOTO BY JEN SHANNON PHOTOGRAPHY
Cheering patients at Baptist Medical Center