A bizarre doctor’s visit turned up a 25-year-old pen in the pit of an elderly woman’s stomach – and when it removed, it was still usable.
The 76-year-old woman, whose story was reported in the British Medical Journal Case Reports, was seeing a gastrointestinal specialist for stomach-related problems, including weight loss and diarrhea.
She was diagnosed with severe diverticulosis, but it wasn’t until after her diagnosis that her doctor noticed “a linear foreign body” in an X-ray of her stomach.
Upon questioning, the patient remembered she had once accidentally swallowed a black felt-tip pen.
She was using the pen to poke her tonsils, examining them with a handheld mirror as she stood on stairs, a report from gastroenterologist Dr. Oliver Walters explained.
While doing this, she lost her balance and stumbled down a couple steps, swallowing the pen in the process. At the time, X-rays didn’t show any evidence of the object in her stomach, and the issue was forgotten.
