If You Had Hours Or A Few Days To Live, Would You Want To Know?
February 2, 2010 / 11:24 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierI’m reading this article on a cat who leaps into your bed at the old folks home and he has got solid death instincts. He only becomes your companion when you’re on your way to permanent sleep:
Dr Dosa first publicised Oscar’s gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Since then, the cat has gone on to double the number of imminent deaths it has sensed and convinced the geriatrician that it is no fluke.
The tortoiseshell and white cat spends its days pacing from room to room, rarely spending any time with patients except those with just hours to live.
If kept outside the room of a dying patient, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in.
When nurses once placed the cat on the bed of a patient they thought close to death, Oscar “charged out” and went to sit beside someone in another room. The cat’s judgement was better than that of the nurses: the second patient died that evening, while the first lived for two more days.
Dr Dosa and other staff are so confident in Oscar’s accuracy that they will alert family members when the cat jumps on to a bed and stretches out beside its occupant.
“It’s not like he dawdles. He’ll slip out for two minutes, grab some kibble and then he’s back at the patient’s side. It’s like he’s literally on a vigil,” Dr Dosa wrote.
Hmm… maybe if I was already in hospice, this could be helpful…making sure to have that phone call, talk, whatever.
On the other hand, if the cat is wrong only 10% of the time….
2 Responses to “If You Had Hours Or A Few Days To Live, Would You Want To Know?”
February 2 2010 / 11:41 am
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I don’t know how to answer that question, but I can tell you that certain cartoonist knows exactly what his answer is.
Heh!
February 3 2010 / 9:36 pm
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Well, I would like to know when medical journals get their story ideas from the TV show House.