A 24-year old man in Germany had been living with a pencil lodged inside of his head for more than a decade, according to the Associated Foreign Press, and he apparently had no clue that it was there. In 2011, surgeons at Aachen University Hospital, the largest hospital in all of Europe, performed a successful procedure to have the pencil removed from the young man’s head, and the details of the case were revealed in a presentation in Germany this week.
After complaining to a doctor about his impaired vision and a discharge from his nostril, the good, old No. 2 was discovered via a CT scan, and the man soon underwent surgery to have the writing utensil removed. Despite the severity of the procedure – seriously, imagine finding out that you had A PENCIL jammed up in your brain and try to pretend that it doesn’t freak you out – the man recovered and, despite some blurred vision, was out of the hospital after a few days.
So how on Earth did a pencil wind up lodged in his head and the back of his throat for so long? He experienced a pretty nasty fall when he was a kid that resulted in a serious nosebleed. Add two and two and you the pencil going in the hard way. But I know what you’re thinking and yes… there’s a picture of the pencil after it was removed.
Do you want to see it? You can see it if you’d like, but I’m going to warn you that it’s pretty gross. Feel free to look, but don’t get mad at me when you look at it and you’re like, “Ew, bro!” Go ahead and click on the next page if you want to see the pencil.
I told you.
(Image via the AFP and the University Clinc RWTH Aachen)