Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat - By David Dosa Page 0,70

What if Oscar was trying to tell me something?

He considered my hand and then moved his face in toward it as if to say, Scratch, stupid!

I relaxed and began to scratch under his chin. I pulled him closer and he continued to purr more loudly. We sat together, sharing a moment, before we were interrupted.

“Hello, Dr. Dosa. I want to introduce you to the Carey family.”

I looked up to see Mimi returning with the family. Oscar saw them too and began to take his leave. He leaped out of my grasp onto the floor before sprinting down the hallway.

“Cats,” I said, by way of introduction, and leaned over to offer my hand.

Both daughters smiled.

“Do you have any questions about the unit?” I asked, trying to be helpful.

“Do you always have cats here?” one of the daughters asked incredulously.

“Absolutely. We have two cats on this floor and four more downstairs, along with a rabbit and several birds,” Mimi answered.

“That’s so nice,” her sister responded. She was the one who had been studying Louise earlier. She turned to the father.

“Dad, Mom really loved cats.”

Past tense.

“You mean, your mother loves cats,” I said.

She gave me an odd look, perhaps slightly embarrassed. I realized how many of the families I worked with spoke of their loved ones with dementia as if they were already gone.

“Actually,” I said, letting the poor woman off the hook, “we’ve found that the presence of animals really helps residents in the latter stages of dementia. Your mother will know that they’re here.”

“Really?” the woman asked.

“Yes, I didn’t really think so myself at first, but I’ve spent enough time up here to realize that the animals really do make a difference for the residents and the families.”

The woman gave me a questioning glance that I immediately recognized. It was probably the same look I had given Mary the first time she had shared her musings about Oscar.

“I suppose there is just something about animals that still gets through.” I paused for a second. “I’d like to think they have something to teach us, too.”

The woman nodded and looked around, “So, what do you think, Dad?”

“I think this is the place.” He attempted a smile—an effort, given the circumstances and turned to Mimi. “If it’s still available and you’re willing to take care of my Lucy, we’ll take the bed.”

Mimi nodded and escorted the family out of the unit, deep in conversation about the various forms and paperwork that would need to be filled out.

As they left, Mary appeared from down the opposite hallway, pushing a resident in a wheelchair. She parked the patient by the desk and then reached over to give the woman a hug.

The woman smiled and returned the embrace.

“What was that all about?” she asked me as she rounded the desk to sit down.

“Mimi was here with a family. It looks like we’ll have a new resident in Ruth’s bed.”

“We always do, David. They never stay empty for long.”

The afternoon sun had faded now, like words written in water. Halfway down the hall I saw Oscar appear out of one of the rooms where he had taken refuge from the visitors. He looked at both of us and paused for a moment. Then he turned and trotted purposefully down the hall in the opposite direction. When he came to the last room on the right he stopped and appeared to sniff the air. Then with a flicker of his tail, he disappeared into the room. I looked at Mary with the hint of a smile. Was Oscar trying to tell us something?

I was listening.

Afterword

MUCH LIKE THE FAMILY MEMBERS I VISITED IN THE course of my Oscar odyssey, I have come to be thankful for what Oscar does and what he has to teach us about the end of life. But the question that people keep asking me is “How does he do it?”

I think back to a phone call that I received shortly after my essay about Oscar appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. The caller introduced himself as a World War II veteran from Florida. He told me that he had been a medic in Europe during the war and that his job was to evacuate injured soldiers from the battlefield.

“Doctor, by the end of the first few months of dragging people off the battlefield, I could tell whether the person was going to live or die,” he said. “If they were going to die, there was a sweet aroma emanating from their bodies.