Estela Melendez went the hospital when she was 91-years-old because she fell and hurt herself. When she on an x-ray, she was expecting to see a broken bone or something less serious.
Instead, doctors came back and told her that they needed to operate because they’d found what they thought was a tumor. A second x-ray was ordered to make sure that the tumor was something they could remove. When it came back, they found out that the mass wasn’t a tumor at all. It was a fetus.
Estela hadn’t known she was pregnant. Although her and her late husband, who died in January, couldn’t have children, she certainly didn’t think it was due to the fact that she was already pregnant, especially when there was no child born. Doctors discovered, though, that the calcified fetus was inside her body for over 60 years.
Although they could remove the fetus, doctors decided that it was riskier to operate on a 91-year-old woman than remove the fetus. For her part, Estela says that it isn’t really a problem for her. Most of the time, it just feels like an uncomfortable lump.
She also says that the calcified fetus reminds her of her husband and their unfulfilled dream of having children when they were so much younger.