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NYer of the Week
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Gayle Kirschenbaum And Her Dog - Healing Patients With Smiles
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SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2002
Chelsea was just another shih tzu before September 11. But she and her proud owner, Gayle Kirschenbaum, were Downtown on the day of the September 11 attacks, filming a documentary about their relationship.
They got footage of the attacks on the twin towers instead - and their lives were transformed.
I'll never forget - this one woman made a beeline for Chelsea, and she said, Can I pick up your dog. And I said yes, and she held Chelsea and said, This is the best thing I've seen all day,' Kirschenbaum says.
She decided to take a class at the Delta Society to get Chelsea certified as a therapy dog. Their first assignment was visiting people at the Family Assistance Center at Pier 94. They were there almost daily until it closed in January. Then they started visiting hospitals, including Cabrini Hospice in Gramercy Park, where most patients are terminally ill.
She makes me very happy because she feels like she cheers people up, said Angelina Pisano, a patient. The look of her, the way she is, she's cute, she's tiny and small, doesn't feel like she does harm to anybody.
Gayle and Chelsea are great, said Cabrini Hospital Director Mary Cooke. They're among our top volunteers, and you can see Chelsea, how comfortable she is with the patients. She never seems to get ruffled and excited, and that's very important for our patients. Gayle also is very enthusiastic about her work and it's great to have them here."
At St. Vincents, Gayle says, Chelsea helped bring a woman out of a coma by just being there, cuddling playfully with her on her hospital bed.
My objective our objective, we are a team when we go into a room, is to see what's going on and to make the patient feel better, to take their minds off their problems and to bring some love and joy to their lives and to bring a warm, consoling soul to them, a little canine soul, she says.
So for bringing love without so much as a bark, and making it look like a walk in the park, Gayle and Chelsea are NY1s New Yorkers of the Week.
If you can help Lisa get the World's Table Cookbook professionally published, call Windows of Hope at 212-893-3710.
To nominate somebody to be our New Yorker of the Week, email us at ny1news@ny1.com, or write to:
New Yorker of the Week
NY1 News
75 Ninth Avenue
Sixth Floor
New York, NY 10011
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