Waiting for a visit from Oscar (1 Viewer)

[Dennis Nicholls]

This is the primary citation for this story:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/328


How odd that a cat can tell what modern medicine cannot.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Can't help myself:

A father put his 3 year old daughter to bed, told her a story
and listened to her prayers which she ended by saying: "God
bless Mommy, God bless Daddy, God bless Grandma
and good-bye Grandpa."

The father asked, "Why did you say good-bye Grandpa?"

The little girl said, "I don't know daddy, it just seemed
like the thing to do."

The next day grandpa died.

The father thought it was a strange coincidence.

A few months later the father put the girl to bed and
listened to her prayers which with: "God bless Mommy,
God Bless Daddy and good-bye Grandma."

The next day the grandmother died.

Oh my gosh, thought the father, this kid is in contact with
the other side.

Several weeks later when the girl was going to bed the dad
heard her say: "God bless Mommy and good-bye Daddy."

He practically went into shock. He couldn't sleep all night and
got up at the crack of dawn to go to his office. He was nervous
as a cat all day, had lunch and watched the clock. He figured if
he could get by until midnight he would be okay. He felt safe in
the office, so instead of going home at the end of the day he
stayed there, drinking coffee, looking at his watch and jumping
at every sound. Finally, midnight arrived, he breathed a sigh of
relief and went home.

When he got home his wife said "I've never seen you work so late,
what's the matter?"

He said "I don't want to talk about it, I've just spent the worst day
of my life."

She said, "You think you had a bad day, you'll never believe what
happened to me. This morning my golf pro dropped dead in the
middle of my lesson!"

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Or maybe Oscar just smothers these poor people in their sleep so he can steal their souls.


I'm more impressed with dogs that can sense seizures coming on.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I see that Oscar has become very famous, even becoming a standard lede in political humor:

www.sfgate.com/columnists/asmussen/

 

[Malcolm R]

I'd think it would freak out the residents at the nursing home whenever the cat entered their room.

But cats always seem to sense illness. Whenever I was sick growing up, my cat would always sit by my side until I was better.

 

[Marianne]

Apparently, Oscar can sense which of the many terminally ill patients will die within a couple of hours. This has enabled the Nursing Home to know when to contact relatives so they can be there at the end.

 

[Jeffrey Noel]

Malcom, CNN interviewed a doctor that published the article about the cat and asked the same question, "Aren't the residents nervous about seeing the cat?" (or something to that extent) He responded by saying that the patients probably only register that there is a cat in the building, nothing beyond that. They are mentally incapable of putting two-and-two together this far along in their disease/illness.

 

[Marianne]

Nicknames for Oscar as seen on TV:

The Grim Kitty

Dr. Catvorkian

 

[BrianW]

Heh.

With dogs sniffing cancer and predicting seizures, I shouldn't find this so amazing, but I do. I wonder if we will ever be able to devise an instrument that can detect the smell of death?