Dear Mr Kuhn – Your yo-yo’s make a difference

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A heart-warming yo-yo story..

Dear Mr. Kuhn,

Your yo-yos make a difference! Since the generous gift of the wooden yo-yos you sent me, I wanted to pass along two stories of your yo-yos making a difference in other people’s lives.  As you know, I work on the orthopedics and oncology floor and most patients are experiencing a great deal of pain.  But there are opportunities to help them forget their situation for a while and enter the “state of yo.”

The first patient I wanted to tell you about was on our floor recovering from a hip fracture.  During my shifts I discovered she was celebrating her 90th birthday.  The family, all crowded in the patient’s room, insisted I share some of the hot pink colored birthday cake, so I did.  They had noticed me out in the hallway throwing my yo-yo around and asked me if I could show them a few tricks.  I don’t know many (still need a lot of practice and haven’t found anyone who does the “old school” responsive yo-yos…the kids are all doing the unresponsive thing).  I ran through the 4 tricks I knew and to my delight, they were very entertained and happy.  In particular, my patient told me that she and her husband were big yo-yoers themselves!  Granted, she hadn’t thrown in a while, but it brought a huge smile to her face.  It seemed only appropriate to give her one of the Tom Kuhn yo-yos that says “I’ve got the world on a string” as a birthday gift.

The second patient I interacted with wasn’t on our floor for injuries.  From time to time we do get randomly assigned patients that are there for psychological evaluations.  These are patients that have either done themselves harm or have done enough to get them admitted.  The evaluation process can take up to a week to do, as we do not staff psychologists on staff and they are very much in demand.  This particular patient had a talent for art and drawing.  He, once again, saw me throwing around my yoyo in the hallways and asked me to visit with him and share some tricks.  He expressed interest in learning how to yoyo….. and because he’s under observation, I had to ask the nurse if giving the patient a yoyo was acceptable.  There’s the concern of using the string to harm themselves or the yoyo itself as a weapon (believe it or not).  The nurse knew the benefit the patient would recieve and did feel that he was not of the nature where we had to worry.  She paged the doctor and asked if it was okay for the patient to have a yoyo.  Ultimately, the answer was “yes,” and I spent the next half hour teaching him the basics of the yoyo…. how to wind it up, the basic throw, how to throw a sleeper…. I also had a xeroxed sheet of basic yoyo tricks for him to study and use.  It was a slice of nervana for me, being a very basic-to intermediate thrower myself, now teaching such a wonderfully fun hobby to young man who needed something to distract him from being stuck in a room with not much to do. (It felt especially great for me, as in my last career I was a teacher for 10 years.  It felt great to teach again)

I work three days on and 4 days off (12 hour shifts).  Patients tend to discharge or transfer out rather quickly as they either go home to get better, get transferred to rehabilitation, or to an assisted living situation.  I will find out this week if the gentleman I taught is still with us and how his technique has improved.

I just wanted to thank you again for providing the means of such a simple gift.  I love it when I can make a difference and help people feel better…. I also love to promote your brand because there’s a certain style and flair behind it that a big no-name company has.

THank you for your time and have a great day,

Thank you for sharing Brian.

Happy Yoing

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