A Pen in the Gut or Writer’s Blockage?

The term writer's block refers to a condition suffered by a writer (usually a professional) in which he or she has lost the ability to create anything new.  The condition is, in most cases, temporary. 

However, the term takes on a different meaning when you consider the case of a woman who was recently discovered to have a pen in her stomach having accidentally swallowed it 25 years ago and which, once removed, amazingly still worked.

The long forgotten utensil was only discovered when its keeper, a 76-year-old woman, was admitted to hospital suffering from extreme weight loss and diarrhoea.  A CT scan of her abdomen then discovered the pen (a felt-tip no less) which was soon removed by doctors.

So how did it get there?

Well, it seems that back in the eighties, the woman had been admiring her tonsils (giving them a prod with a pen whilst looking in the mirror apparently) and then slipped and somehow swallowed the pen.

An X-ray at the time failed to spot the foreign body and her story was not taken seriously – until now that is.

Although the pen in her stomach may well have been the cause of her diarrhoea, doctors decided to avoid the risk of a perforated intestine and removed the pen despite its long term residence.

Not entirely unprecedented, earlier this year the British Medical Journal reported the case of a man who had swallowed the cap of his USB memory stick.  In this instance though, the man noticed what he had done and, once the stick had made its way fully down his windpipe, he underwent surgery to have the intruder removed.

So next time you feel a pain in your gut, perhaps it isn’t last night’s dodgy kebab at all but rather a long forgotten item from your pencil case or a much-missed computer accessory that you may have inadvertently eaten.