An American woman, Rose Marie Bentley, was a poor swimmer, raised five children and lived to be 99, even though most of her organs were in the wrong places inside her body, without her knowing it. Her case, which was discovered long after her death, is characterized as a medical paradox.
The woman, who owns a pet store, died in 2017 and donated her body for medical research to Oregon University of Health and Science in Portland. Anatomy students were the first to notice that her organs were not where they should be. The liver, stomach and other organs of the abdomen were in a mirror position and only her heart was on the right side.
This condition was due to a rare congenital anomaly, which occurs only in one birth in 22.000. Doctors said they were surprised that the incident went unnoticed while the woman was living, and that she lived such a long and healthy life, as reversing the position of the organs usually results in life-threatening heart problems and other disorders. .
It is estimated that only one in 50 million people born with organs in the wrong places lives long enough to grow up. Until now, doctors were aware of a case that had lasted until the age of 73, which makes Bendley the world record holder for people with such unusual anatomy.
The woman, according to her children, did not have any chronic condition other than arthritis, while she had undergone three surgeries, without any doctor mentioning that she saw anything strange, except for one who removed the appendicitis and it seemed to him in an unusual position. Her case has now been presented at an anatomy conference in the United States by assistant professor Cameron Walker, whose students discovered it in 2018 when they noticed something was wrong with the blood vessels, according to the BBC and the Guardian.
Source: KYPE