File this under News Stories With a Point.
Doctors have revealed the account of a 24-year old man in Berlin, Germany, who lived 15 years with a No. 2 pencil stuck in his head --- without knowing that it was there or that it was the cause of his many head-related medical problems.
The details of the case were recently revealed during a presentation in Germany.
A native of Afghanistan, the man had apparently suffered a series of ailments for some time before his discomfort finally prompted him to see a doctor.
After the patient complained of headaches, impaired vision, and some sort of discharge leaking from his right nostril, doctors performed a CT, or Computerized Tomography, scan and discovered the four inch stub of a No. 2 pencil that was lodged in the back of the man's throat and had damaged his eye socket.
So, in 2011, surgeons at Aachen University Hospital, the largest hospital in Europe, successfully removed the pencil from the head of the young man, who reportedly recovered successfully from the procedure and left the hospital in only a few days, despite lingering blurry vision.
The man cannot remember when or how the writing implement ended up in his head, although he recalls taking a serious fall when he was young and then having a significant nosebleed.
In 2007, Margret Wegner, also a resident of Germany, complained of headaches and nosebleeds --- which led surgeons to discover and attempt to remove a pencil that had been inside of her head for more than 50 years.
Wegner, who was 59 at the time of the discovery and operation, said she remembered falling while carrying a pencil when she was four years old. "The pencil went right through my skin - and disappeared into my head," she said.
In fact, the doctors weren't able to remove all of that pencil, so Wegner still has a four-fifths of an inch piece of the pencil in her skull.