Making Rounds with Oscar

Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary

By David Dosa, M.D.
Published by Hyperion
Copyright 2010

Dr. Dosa is a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medicine School of Brown University. Several of his patients reside at Steere House, a facility serving the elderly who need extra nursing care. Steere House also serves as residence for several cat. One particular cat, Oscar, lives on the third floor where those who need the most care due to dementia or need end-of-life hospice care reside.

Dr. Dosa begins hearing stories of how Oscar has a gift for identifying those who are nearing death. Being a scientific-minded sort, the good doctor scoffs at first. But as time goes by he becomes curious and begins to interview those families who have had a Steere House resident who was on the receiving end of Oscar’s peculiar services. The book revolves around Dr. Dosa’s supposed skepticism and these interviews.

Having lived with cats for some 40 years now and also having had a mother who had Alzheimer’s disease, I was eager to read this book. However, I was rather disappointed. Dr. Dosa’s skepticism seemed a rather disingenuous device to base the book around. After all, therapy dogs have been around for a long time now, as have cancer-sniffing dogs and those who sense oncoming epileptic and diabetic seizures. We have scientific evidence that the proximity of a pet can lower blood pressure and aid the release of relaxing endorphins. Why could there not be a cat who senses the advent of death?

But then, I have lived with cats and have benefitted from their presence in my life. Dr. Dosa had not. I suppose I should cut him some slack.

I can just see Oscar lifting a hind leg to do his laundry and thinking, “What’s the big deal?”

Tyranny of the Tiny

Here's another from my archives that hit me today as very appropriate for some reason.

We had a cat as a family many moons ago named Isaiah. I've spoken about him someplace, I think - Isaiah the Grumpy Prophet. He could drop you in your tracks, pull you up short with one of his dirty looks from across the room. Just walk in, he'd look at you and you felt that all the secrets you hold from other people and yourself were being laid bare in front of you and you better straighten up and fly right, sister!

He wasn't a big cat, rather small and not very muscular, and rather non-descript mottled gray tabby. We called him Tiny as a kitten. I'm not sure who came up with it, but when this would happen - the moments we suffered this look of accountability - we had a brief "prayer" we'd vocalize.

"Lord, save us from the Tyranny of the Tiny."

Perhaps we're suffering a time of walking through the little stuff - the Tyranny of the Tiny. The everyday crappiness that gets in our way. The debris of past little bits that show up like spinach stuck in your teeth.

You know, we both...and some others...have gone through a year of "big stuff." We've landed in places both physical and spiritual which we could not have imagined.... But life isn't all about the big stuff. Mostly it's about the Tyranny of the Tiny. So, I think we're in kind of a limbo energy-wise (though the RC church now says there is no limbo! Who'd a thunk?!), coming down from the mountain and assimilating the little stuff that bugs the crap out of us.

So,
*pat-pat*
*goofy sentimental, knowing smile*
You're okay.
I'm okay.
Lord, save us from the Tyranny of the Tiny.
Amen.