An article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine chronicles dozens of cases where Oscar the Cat predicts when nursing home patients are going to die - in most cases, less than 4 hours. Doctors started noticing that the cat began making his own rounds, and staff started calling the patient's family once the feline made his diagnosis.
According to http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/357/4/328 , the smelly cat will sniff and observe patients, and then sit beside people who wind up dying in a few hours. It gives new meaning to the saying that cats always pick out the person in the room who least wants them in their lap.
Let the nickname game begin!
The Grim Creeper is hard to beat.
Reminds me of a perfectly innocent poem,
"the fog comes in on soft cat paws???
(something like that)
Death creeps in on soft white paws, and lies in wait, he seals your fate.
At first I thought it was the warm blanket, since cats locate the warmest
and most comfy spot anywhere..until it
was pointed out to me that he left the
one patient 12 hours early, while everyone else thought death was imminent
and came back at his usual 2 hr waiting
period. No word wrap..thanks. ;)
This is from the New England Journal of Medicine, after all!
If the cat couldn't see, it would even be a blind test from a respected annul of medical science.
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