GUWAHATI: It was business like any other day when Dr. Walliul Islam was at the operation theatre conducting surgery on a 30-year-old man who had visited him at the private hospital in Guwahati complaining about severe abdomen pain after having accidentally swallowed a mobile headphone.
However, during the course of surgery, the doctor failed to detect the cord in the gastrointestinal tract, prompting him to get an X-ray done. He was surprised when the report of X-ray revealed the cord’s presence in the patient’s urinary bladder. And it was not a mobile headphone but a mobile phone charger cord.
“The man came to me with complaints of pain in the abdomen and history of accidental ingestion of headphones. The initial tests, including X-ray, revealed there was something in his lower abdomen. An endoscopy reconfirmed it. But after the surgery, I found nothing in his gastrointestinal tract. I checked his intestines. Even there too, I found nothing. So, another X-ray was conducted in the operation theatre itself and it revealed the presence of the mobile phone charger cord in his urinary bladder. It was removed,” Dr. Islam said.
The patient was said to be in the habit of inserting objects through his penis to have sexual pleasure. Dr. Islam said the act is called urethral masturbation. It involves the insertion of an object into the urethra.
“I read about it in books but I never came across a case like this in my 25-year career,” the doctor said.
He said if the man had told the truth, the cord could have been removed through the same way it was inserted and the surgery could have been avoided. He said he and his assistants had asked the patient multiple times about the case but he all along said he had swallowed it accidentally.
“He was possibly too shy to disclose his act. He recovered and has been already discharged,” Dr. Islam added.
The identity of the patient was not revealed. He had visited the doctor recently five days after committing the bizarre act.
“Surprises in surgery…All of you must have guessed the entry point and route (it entered through his penile urethra to his urinary bladder). His mental health remains a question…Everything is possible on this earth. Indeed,” Dr. Islam wrote on social media.