A Case Study of Pencil in the Brain

As children, our parents warned us about playing around with sharp objects such as scissors, pencils, and nails. I remembered as a child a got stabbed with a scissors as the back of my head. I lost a lot of blood and was rushed to the emergency unit. It was a deep cut and I recovered over time. A male friend of mine had a door knob stuck in his chest while we were running around his parents house, and had to undergo surgery which cost a lot of money and he spent a long time in the hospital.

While some of us have had a fair share of childhood incident due to sharp objects, other people might have not had any experience but some people's experience can be very fatal. In this post, I will be sharing about a case of a woman who fell as a child and had a pencil stuck in her head for 55 years.

It all began in 1952 when Margret Weaner, a curious four-year-old, had a traumatic fall. During her tumble, a pencil pierced her skull, penetrating towards her brain. In those times, the technology required for a safe removal procedure was not available. Amazingly, the pencil missed crucial arteries by a mere few millimeters, sparing her life. Although her external wound healed, Margret experienced chronic headaches, loss of her sense of smell, and frequent nosebleeds. Despite the pencil lodged in her head, she pursued a career as a mathematics teacher, demonstrating remarkable resilience.

In medicine, when a person has a foreign object in their body, the first thing is to remove the object so it doesn't lead to infection, as well as become toxic to the person but when it has to do with the brain, options are weighed. Foreign objects finding their way to the brain can lead to defects and other symptoms depending on the part in the brain the object gets to or affects. It can cause loss of motor function, cognition, excruciating headaches, nerve damage, edema in the brain, and so on. But while doctors would be willing to remove whatever foreign object is in the body, the brain is left for debate as risks will be weighed. If the risk of removal outweighs any benefits, then the object might be left there.

55 years later, technology has improved, and Dr. Hans Behrbohm was able to perform the operation on her. The pencil has shifted its location, but then with a CT scan, the location was identified. The procedure has a risk of getting her blind because the pencil could affect her optic nerve, but then the operation was successful although a little part of the pencil which was embeded in the brain matter was left there but a large portion of the pencil was removed.

Margret's case is not unique when it comes to the intricate decision-making process surrounding foreign objects in the brain. A 1999 case study highlighted a person who survived a gunshot wound to the head but suffered from cortical blindness. Removing the bullet posed significant risks, so only the metal fragment was extracted, while the deformed bullet projectile remained. Fragments near the visual cortex were also left intact to prevent visual loss.

Let me conclude with saying that if there is any case of a foreign object being stuck in your body, then it is advisable that you seek the help of a professional rather than do it yourself because doing it yourself can lead to complicating circumstances such as blood loss, nerve damage and even irreparable tissue damage.

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^{Read More}

^{https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6078685/
https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/after-55-years-of-pain-german-woman-has-pencil-removed-from-brain-a-498594.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7607224/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/german-woman-has-pencil-removed-from-head/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6933721.stm}

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^{Image Reference}

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• Image 1 || Wikimedia Commons || Diagram of the brain
• Image 1 || Wikimedia Commons || Examination of the skull and brain