Ok, so, I read this story the other day about this British woman that went to the doctor complaining of stomach pain. When the doctor x-rayed her, they found that she had a PEN (yes, one of those old fashioned things people used to use to write with before computers were invented) in her stomach!
I have so many questions but first, let me re-cap the rest of the story. It seems that this 76 year old woman had forgotten that she swallowed a felt tip pen over 25 years ago. It wasn’t until she started experiencing abdominal pain and weight loss that she decided a trip to the doctor was in order. Apparently she was poking at her tonsil, for whatever reason, with a pen and managed to slip, jamming the pen down her throat.
How do you forget that you swallowed a pen? Seriously? The story did say that when the accident initially happened, she went to the doctor who did not believe her and her husband discounted her story as well. Maybe after all these years she led herself to believe that she had dreamt the pen swallowing.
This story makes me think of that show on “Animal Planet” about the crazy things that veterinarians find in the stomachs of dogs. It’s my fear that I will be on that show one of these days with Winston. I don’t understand how he eats some of the things he eats. If you were to open my dog’s stomach up right now, you would find some crazy stuff, carpet, wood, glass and God knows what else. That show is crazy though, I saw one where this couple had a new baby and they kept losing the pacifiers. When the dog became ill x-rays showed something like 30 whole pacifiers inside this dogs stomach. It’s crazy the trouble that dogs will get themselves into.
So back to the pen story, the funny thing about this story is, the most shocking discovery during this whole case was that the pen still worked after being subjected to 25 years of stomach acid. Really? You just found a fountain pen in grandma’s belly and you think the most exciting part of the case is the fact that the pen still works? Granted, it is pretty cool but this doctor was in total shock and awe.
So my final question is this: You know how when you have surgery and they take out a kidney stone or something and they let you keep the stones if you want? Did granny keep the pen? I think she should probably use it to write a Thank-You card to the doctor!