In the tranquility of her life, a kind and experienced old woman discovers her own untold story. Surprised by more than just the ailments of old age, she realizes a mystery long hidden within herself. What she thought was just a nuisance of age turned out to be an enigma trapped deep inside her.
Estela Meléndez, a 92-year-old woman, went to Claudio Vicuña Hospital in San Antonio, Chile, due to an intense abdominal pain that interrupted her quiet routine and generated concern since, at her age, bodily symptoms should not go unnoticed.
After performing routine tests and finding nothing unusual, the doctors decided to take X-rays. What they observed in the X-rays left them surprised.
Doctors were able to determine that what was causing the woman’s discomfort was a mummified fetus in her womb, local newspapers reported. Medical experts determined that the fetus had been inside her for 50 years or more. Because of the patient’s advanced age, specialists ruled out performing any surgery to remove it.
“Most likely, she never realized she was pregnant, but I think she must have been suffering from abdominal pains for a long time,” explained a doctor.
But the effects of having a fetus inside for so long caused other health problems. “She has always had problems because of this issue. She has a shorter leg because of its weight, and she can’t urinate properly. Before she even had to urinate lying down,” said Luis Meléndez, one of her relatives.
Estela lives in a humble house in a coastal town in Chile. Her children said that although she was officially 92 years old, she was actually about to turn 110 because she had been registered at 17.
They also reported that despite the discomfort, no one had paid much attention to the old woman and her ailments were treated as simple abdominal pains.
Her children remember that about 50 years ago, she was pregnant and lost the baby. So the doctors did a scraping but suspected they hadn’t done it right. Now, when they saw the X-rays, it was proven that the fetus was still inside her womb.
“They took her to the hospital, told her she had cancer, and operated on her. And they never told her that what she had was a baby. And so it stayed inside,” said Luis, her younger brother.
Emergency room
Despite her advanced age and the ball in her abdomen, Estela lived normally in her home going about her activities. But, one day, she fell and hit her elbow, so her brother Luis took her to the local clinic, where Estela had had her cancer surgery several decades earlier.
The doctor who treated her was the one who made the incredible discovery, “He uncovered her belly and was amazed by what he saw. ’This lady is pregnant,’ he said. ’Take another X-ray of her.’”
“When an older adult suffers a fall, a hip X-ray is taken to rule out a pelvis fracture. When it was done, an image appeared, which showed the spine of a fetus,” explained Dagoberto Duarte, director of the Valparaiso-San Antonio Health Service.
It is an unprecedented event in the history of Chilean healthcare. According to Duarte’s data, the fetus was about 30 weeks gestation and weighed around two kilos. It was an abdominal pregnancy, with the embryo implanted outside the uterus.
The authorities assure that Estela never underwent cancer surgery, as she claimed. However, her relatives claim that the “cancer” that Estela had more than 50 years ago was actually this pregnancy. And that in the 1980s she had X-rays done at the local doctor’s office, where they saw what she had. “They did know, but they didn’t want to do anything,” Luis claims.
Because of the patient’s advanced age, it was too dangerous to remove the mummified fetus, so Estela will have to continue living with it for the rest of her life.
Cases like these are surprising and show that we know very little about human beings and their capacity to endure hardships. We have other surprising cases like that of a woman who survived a deadly fire thanks to the power of love, of a woman who got pregnant with her late husband’s baby, and of the kid who had to live inside a plastic bubble.
This story is atrocious that someone would tell her she had cancer, perform surgery, discover this fetus and ignore it, do nothing and close her up and lie to her about her diagnosis. It's seriously disturbing. I feel so badly for her. I hope that she's doing well emotionally. It surely has to affect her even after all these years. I wish her less pain and more wellness.
