KOCHI: The plastic part of a ballpoint pen and its nib were removed from the facial region of a Plus-One student from Alappuzha who was admitted to the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences recently.
The boy, Joseph Thomas, a native of Mararikulam, in Alappuzha, was operated upon by AIMS head and neck surgeons Dr Subramani Iyer and Dr Sherry Peter.
While the X-Ray showed only a small metallic nib, the boy had the plastic portion of the pen in the facial region.
"When we removed the nib through a small incision in the neck, we realised that there was something more remaining in the upper region of his face. Then we made an incision near the eye and, through endoscopy, realized that plastic part was also stuck there," Dr Iyer said.
He said it was very close to the main blood vessel and could have been risky for the boy. The operation took about three and a half hours.
"Since it was plastic, it was not visible in the X-Ray. As there was a wound near the eye and the nib was visible, we thought that all we had to do was to remove the nib. The plastic portion had started getting infected and there had been formation of pus," he said.
The boy, who belongs to a poor family, was first detected with the nib about 10 months ago. Several hospitals had expressed their inability to operate on him as it would have required cutting the jaw bone, which could lead to several complications.
Meanwhile, Joseph is doing well.
However, how the pen got into the face remains a mystery.
According to the boy, his friend had pulled out the pen from his eye and the nib had got into his face.
Following appeals for help, the State Cabinet had released Rs 1 lakh from the Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund with the initiative of Finance Minister Thomas Isaac. The boy was shifted to AIMS only recently.