I want to start out by making this disclaimer: I do not beg or borrow or even politely ask any author for a copy of their book. I believe that all reviewers should purchase the books they review themselves - the authors deserve to receive the monies they have coming to them and not be giving out free books. Likewise, I never buy a book based on a reviewer that gets that book free. I kinda feel that they have thus been 'paid' for their review. My reviews are honest. I don't review every book I have ever read (I don't think there are enough days in a week to do that since I will read an average of 5-10 a week). I review the ones that touch me in some way and/or are so good, I feel they deserve the recognition. This book fits both criteria.
That said, this book was recommended to me by Ferfelabat aka Cindy Cruciger who herself is a writer. We have a lot of similar tastes in books. I thank her for this recommendation . I cannot even begin to describe how this book made me feel. Yes, it is about a cat who has an extraordinary gift who lives in a lockdown Alzheimer's and advanced dementia ward of a nursing home. If you have ever been in one or met a dementia patient, you will immediately identify with the book. I can also identify with the idea that cats and/or dogs have an instinctive sense when you need them. People and I am including even my husband, rely on words or actions to perceive another in pain or distress. Animals don't. Whenever I was in pain the past 31 months, I found myself surrounded by my cats. When I was going through cancer therapy, our beloved Snowball (a white/yellow lab) was constantly by my side, just as I have been by the side of any of my animals that have either passed or I put down. Animals are family even more sometimes than family is. On to the book.....
Dr. Dosa is a geriatrician and is one of the doctors that care for the patients at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island (yes this place actually exists as this is a true story - see link below). Oscar is one of the cats that resides at the center. When the cats first began to make an appearance at the Steere House, the staff decided to allow them to stay after watching their interaction with the patients. Oscar is a typical tabby cat who decides when and if he will allow you to pet him. But soon Oscar revealed a talent: he would instinctly know when a patient was about to die and would go and lay next to the person, purring, until they passed.
The book is based on an essay written by Dr. Dosa. As a skeptic with a bad experience from a cat when he was small, Dr. Dosa interviewed the nursing staff and relatives of the patients both still there and those who did pass. He also watched Oscar. The book is based on those observations. It drew me in from the first page and was one of those books you just cannot put down until it is finished.
But for me the book was even more than that. You all have read about my FIL who has vascular dementia and how difficult the past 2 years have been with us having to commit him to a lock down facility and how we have had to cope not only with our decision but to see someone we loved become this person we didn't know. I loved how it was described by one of the family members that the mind of a dementia patient is different. It is. One of the families described it the best:
"A lot of people don't want to let go." .... I knew from experience that letting go is precisely what family members struggle with the most but I wanted Rita's take on it. "Because you want them back in the worst possible way," she said. "You just want your parent back, the one who signed the report cards, the one who made the Thanksgiving dinner. But you can't." Knowing that, and coming to terms with that knowledge, is really the most difficult part. A relationship between two people is made up, for the most part, of invisible things: memories, shared experiences, hopes, and fears. When one person disappears, the other is left alone, as if holding a string with no kite. Memories can do a lot to sustain you, but the invisible stuff of the relationship is lost, even as unresolved issues remain: arguments never settled, kind words never uttered, things left unsaid......coping with the loss is impossible......."So, how do you come to grips with the loss?" I asked......"It takes time. But at first it's about diversion and misdirection."....."But eventually you realize that the best way to cope with the repetitiveness is not through explanation but through distraction. I'd stop trying to convince my father that the strange woman was his wife and simply change the subject to something else and then everything was okay." Dementia is all about comfort and distraction.
I will add that it is watching a person with wonderful memories and a Mr. Fix-it of all things who never had more than a grade school eduction yet was more knowledgeable than many that have completed degrees, slowly unlearn everything until even the basic things become impossible (using Desitin to brush his teeth to using cologne as mouthwash). Right now FIL has good days where he remembers his wife's name and bad days when he gets highly agitated and wants to go home although he has no clue where home is. There are certain times of the day we can visit with him and other times we know not to even bother. Sometimes I wonder what is in his mind as he now goes through life.
It must be like watching a film of a person's life run backward, I thought, except the person doesn't get any younger......"You have to learn to love the person they become and find moments of happiness in the little things."
As one reviewer wrote: "The reader will walk away both encouraged and challenged. Oscar models a behavior that any human could adopt. At the end of life, people need a non-judgmental presence to ease them to the next world."
As a nurse and former hospice nurse, how true those words are! Thanks Dr. Dosa for a wonderful book!
http://www.daviddosa.com/about_oscar.html
http://www.steerehouse.org/whatsnew
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