Gordy's late Granny Goodwitch (Rose Marie Bentley) had wanted her body donated for research. She and grandpa had decided to donate themselves after reading a poem called "To Remember Me". So, after she passed, she was donated to OHSU, where students discovered that she had a rare condition called situs inversus with levocardia - meaning her liver, stomach and other abdominal organs were transposed right to left, but her heart remained on the left side of her chest. Apparently, it can be fairly life-threatening with only about 1 in 50 million with this specific ailment living long enough to become adults. Being that she lived to be 99, she may be the oldest-known person with the condition! What's even crazier, is that no one in our family (and most likely Grandma herself) had any idea that she had this condition.
Here's a few new's articles about her:
https://news.ohsu.edu/2019/04/08/body-donors-rare-anatomy-offers-valuable-lessons
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/an-oregon-woman-lived-99-years-with-organs-backwards-and-she-didnt-know/283-f736f64c-2576-46a5-a74a-cda42c5a50c9
https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2019/04/oregon-feed-store-owner-was-oldest-living-person-with-1-in-50-million-medical-condition.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/health/99-year-old-backward-organs-medical-oddity/index.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-oregon-woman-organs-20190409-story.html
Here's a copy of the poem that inspired her to donate:
To Remember Me by Robert Noel Test, American Poet (1926-1994)
The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital; busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don’t call this my deathbed. Let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk. Explore every corner of my brain.
Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil.
Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
I will never forget you... you will always be my granny goodwitch.
