Judy Danchura of Canada could never have guessed that befriending the stray orange and white tabby she calls Sumo would save her life. Last June, according to CBC News, Danchura saw the big tomcat strolling through her backyard. She put some food out for him and didn’t give it much thought until about 3 AM, when Sumo returned, meowing at her door so persistently that Danchura decided to let him in.
She made up a litter box for Sumo and went back to bed. ”While she and her husband slept,” reports CBC News, “the cat hopped onto the bed and walked across her body. As it stepped on her breast, Danchura was struck by an unusual shot of pain.”
“I sort of went, ‘Oh geez, there’s definitely something wrong there,’” Danchura tells CBC News. She was right. She had a lump in her breast, which a trip to the doctor revealed was a tumor. A malignant tumor. Because it had been detected very early, Danchura was able to begin treatment immediately – giving her a 95% chance of survival.
Sumo isn’t the first animal to be suspected of being able to detect illness in an owner. Oscar, a cat who lives in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, is notorious for predicting the deaths of residents. Oscar isn’t usually friendly, but he often curls up with dying patients. Animal behavior specialists suggest that Oscar is probably smelling a chemical given off by the body as it shuts down. There have also been multiple studies that indicate that dogs can use their keen sense of smell to detect cancer and predict epileptic seizures. Perhaps cats like Sumo can too.
Danchura thinks of Sumo as her guardian angel. ”I sometimes feel overwhelmed because I feel humbled,” she told CBC. ”I can’t understand why this animal turned up for me.” Whether it was random luck, or, as Danchura suspects, Sumo was really trying to tell his new friend something, the cat has certainly given Judy Danchura a chance at surviving her cancer that she might not otherwise have had.
