So,you think the election is taking a loooong time.

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Colombian Woman's Stomach Ache Is Calcified Fetus

Updated 10:01 AM ET November 24, 2000

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Colombian woman who long complained of stomach problems has been found to be carrying a calcified fetus from a pregnancy four decades ago, doctors said.

The fetus was removed on Wednesday, doctors said.

Otilia Castro, 72, evidently became pregnant when she was about 32 but the child developed outside the uterus, in her lower abdominal cavity, and grew to be 10 inches (25 cm) long and weigh 3.5 pounds (1,200 grams).

"I've been a radiologist for 14 years and I've never seen anything like this," said Guillermo Diaz in Ibague,in the central coffee-growing province of Tolima.

The fetus was discovered when Castro was X-rayed for what was initially suspected to be a tumor, Diaz said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Diaz and other physicians estimated Castro had carried the unborn, calcified child inside her for four decades, meaning that her pregnancy occurred when she was about 32.

"I felt like my stomach was big and it hurt me a lot, but I never thought it was that," said Castro, who spoke to a local television news station from her hospital bed in Ibague.

She said she had suffered from stomach aches for years, but they had never been properly diagnosed.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), November 24, 2000


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