Monday, February 1, 2010

This Cat Has Mojo

A cat with an uncanny ability to detect when nursing home patients are about to die has proven itself in around 50 cases by curling up with them in their final hours.
Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death.
I believe cats are special creatures generally, but this one is uncanny.
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.
That's how I want to go. To die as I had lived: with a cat curled up at my side.

13 comments:

tully said...

I imagine my last moments would consist of desperately clinging to those last breaths, using them to shout "NOOOOO! Get the death-cat away from me!"

How does this cat keep killing these old people while getting away with it?

my name is Amanda said...

I know! The Death Cat is kind of creepy.

Gino said...

you may be on to something. this cat may be stealing their souls.

cat are sneaky that way.

PeppyPilotGirl said...

I'd like that, I think. Of course, these people all had severe dementia - they may not have even realized he was there.

Gino said...

hi PPT! long time,eh?
hows the lil one?

Night Writer said...

They should check to see if that cat had managed to get Power of Attorney from the departed!

K-Rod said...

Someone should wok that cat.

Gino said...

spambots suk!

Gino said...

no k rod. you wok dogs. nobody woks a cat.

K-Rod said...

You stand corrected:

http://www.guzer.com/animations/chowmein.php

Did you ever think when you eat Chinese,
It ain't pork or chicken, but a fat siamese,
Yet the food tastes great, so ya don't complain,
but that's not chicken in your chicken chow
mein.
Seems to me I ordered sweet and sour pork,
But Garfield's on my fork,
He's purrin here on my fork...

There's a cat in the kettle at the Peking Moon,
The place that I eat everyday at noon,
They can feed you cat and you'll never know,
Once they wrap it up in dough, boys,
They fry it real crisp in dough.

Chou Lin asked if I wanted more,
As he was dialin up his buddy at the old pet store,
I said not today,
I lost my apettite,
There's two cats in my belly and they want to fight,
I was suckin on a Rolaid and a Tums or two,
When I swear I heard it mew, boy,
And that is when I knew...

There's a cat in the kettle at the Peking Moon,
I think I gotta stop eating there at noon,
They say that it's beef or fish or pork,
But it's purrin there on my fork,
There's a hairball on my fork.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

I like the image of a death-cat. It kills by the sheer power of disdain.

I like that about cats, though. Well, not the killing part.

Tracy said...

I've suspected that cats have this instinct because they secretly want to eat us when we die. They see us merely as a source of food. I'm okay with it.

R.A. Crankbait said...

Man, if I'm in that nursing home and that cat comes around, I'd be all, "I think I'll go for a walk!"