Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat - By David Dosa Page 0,21
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I listened to Saul’s heart and lungs and then finished my assessment by looking at his leg. Mary was right: It was inflamed again, despite the earlier antibiotic treatment. This time, though, the redness appeared to be spreading up his leg toward his knee. I took a moment to draw a line around the redness with a ballpoint pen—a line of demarcation to tell whether the infection would respond to our treatments. Then I sat down next to Saul and surveyed his other labs, quickly noticing a recent test that showed he was colonized with an increasingly common, highly resistant bacterium. This particularly nasty strain of staphylococcus has become the bane of every physician’s existence in recent years. These resistant strains of bacteria have become almost ubiquitous in health care institutions around the world.
As I pondered my limited treatment options, I felt another presence in the room. I looked down to see Oscar sitting on the floor, watching me intently.
“Hey, you. Are you making rounds with me now?”
I reached over and offered my hand. Oscar sniffed it intently, then stood up to move toward me, allowing me to gently scratch him behind the ears. Then with a single leap, he jumped on my lap and sat down, eyeing me. He purred.
“So, what do you think?” I asked Oscar, nodding my head toward the patient.
For a second, he looked over at Saul as if he were actually assessing the situation. Then he jumped off my lap and approached the chair. He leaped up on the arm of the recliner and sniffed the air. Then he jumped down and scampered out of the room. It occurred to me that I had just received a second opinion from a cat.
I finished my exam and said good-bye to Saul. Returning to the front desk, I found Mary busy writing in a chart.
“So, I’ve just been on rounds with Oscar,” I announced, smiling.
“Are you a believer now?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t go that far but I’ve been wondering. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that he has this ability to sense when death is coming. Do you think he just smells a hormone or something you or I can’t perceive?”
“I don’t know, David. I’d like to think it’s a little more than that, but I’ve read about stories from health care workers who say they can smell when death is near.”
I considered what Mary was saying and realized that there was at least one possible scientific explanation.
“When cells stop working, you get a state of starvation and you can smell ketones,” I said, referring to the sweet-smelling chemical by-product that can also be sensed in out-of-control diabetics.
Mary shrugged. “Personally, I’d like to believe that there’s more here than just a smell. Maybe Oscar’s patterning the behavior of the staff on the floor. After all, you were in the room just now showing interest in Saul. Perhaps he just wanted to be part of the team? A cat’s got to earn his keep, you know.”
I looked down the hallway, lost in thought. “In a way that makes sense,” I said, “but it doesn’t explain why he’s sometimes the first to enter a room when a patient is dying.”
I must have been frowning because Mary punched me in the arm in a playful fashion. “Careful!” she said. “You look like you might hurt yourself!”
“It’s funny,” I said. “I’ve had all of this medical education and experience and I still often walk into a room and have no idea what is going to happen. I mean, how often do family members ask you how long their loved one has?”
“All the time.”
“What do you tell them?”
“I tell them that only God really knows and I don’t have his telephone number.”
“Like a cat,” I said, unconsciously.
“What?” Now Mary was the one who looked incredulous.
“You know: ‘A dog comes when you call and a cat takes a message and gets back to you.’” I looked under the desk where the cats’ food was kept: no Oscar. “The thing is, Oscar walked into the room just now, took a deep whiff, and walked out of there as if there was nothing to worry about.”
“I guess he knows that you’re going to fix Mr. Strahan.”
“Maybe. But it does bring you down a peg, knowing that in the great medical org chart, you’re in a box below a cat.”
Mary chuckled at my response. As I looked at her, I suddenly became curious about her own thoughts related to our cat.