Doctors were definitely in for a shock when they dissected the body of 99-year-old Rose Marie Bentley!
The doctors were in for a shock when they examined Mrs. Bentley’s organs. The death of a loved one is never easy to deal with and Rose Marie Bentley knew that all too well after losing her husband, James, to pneumonia in 2004. But before passing away, Mr. and Mrs. Bentley made a decision to donate their organs to the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) after reading a poem titled “I Will Live Forever” by Robert Test. So when it was Mrs. Bentley’s turn to join her husband, her family knew exactly what she wanted them to do with her organs – donation. Born in 1918 in Waldport, Oregon, Mrs. Bentley was the youngest of four children and her eldest sister, Patti Helmig, admitted that she was extremely pampered.
During World War II, Mrs. Bentley, who was a professional hairstylist, volunteered as a nurse aid corps. According to Mrs. Bentley’s third child, Ginger Robbins, aside from helping others out in times of need, she enjoyed swimming and taking her children camping and fishing – in short, Mrs. Bentley was highly active most of her life. After giving birth to her five children, Mrs. Bentley requested doctors to remove her gallbladder, appendix, and womb, and that’s when one doctor realized that her appendix was in an unusual place. Other than that, life was smooth for the Bentleys, who owned and managed the Bentley Food Store, that specialized in farm and pet supplies.
Remember when we told you that Mrs. Bentley was highly active? Well, after the couple retired in 1980, they packed their bags and visited all 50 states in the USA and once they had covered all of them, they traveled overseas! When she wasn’t swimming or traveling, Mrs. Bentley, who was also an avid gardener, could be seen growing vegetables to feed her family. Despite multiple surgeries, doctors weren’t able to identify that Mrs. Bentley had situs inversus with levocardia – i.e. apart from her heart, all her other organs were in the wrong places. This came to light in late 2017.
It was on the 11th of October 2017 that 99-years-old Mrs. Bentley passed away and according to her wish, her body was donated to the OHSU for research. As groups of students gathered around her body and began the dissecting process, they realized that Mrs. Bentley was missing the interior vena cava, a large vein that’s found on the right side of the heart. Not only that, her stomach was on the right instead of on the left, her liver was on the left instead of being on the right, her spleen was also on the right instead of on the left – in short, apart from the heart, which was on the left, all her other internal organs were the mirror image of a typical human anatomy! Basically, they were all in opposite places!
It was only after Mrs. Bentley’s death that doctors confirmed she had situs inversus with levocardia, a rare condition that affects one in approximately 22,000 births! Doctors claim that this condition usually comes with life-threatening heart problems and other health disorders, but Mrs. Bentley’s way of life made them question their knowledge. Mrs. Bentley’s children told the doctors that their mother, as we noted earlier, was highly active and apart from arthritis and acid reflux, she was very healthy and extremely energetic. OHSU’s assistant professor of anatomy, Cam Walker, claimed that Mrs. Bentley’s condition was so rare that their chances of finding another person like her were one in 50 million!
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