A local Pittsburgh man is feeling a lot better after an extended stay in a local hospital. What doctors found during a routine MRI of his head turned out to be something out of a horror story.
Luke O’Neil, age 47, was facing chronic headaches that had been persistent for years, but recently he also began experiencing fainting spells. The new symptoms made him visit his local emergency room, and what doctors found when taking a closer look at his brain is something they say they have never seen before.
“My first thought was Mr. O’Neil had a brain tumor, but after the MRI, we found that something was lodged into his brain,” said Doctor Reid. “It’s the first time in my career that I’ve seen anything like this.”
When they finally came to the realization that there was an object stuck up there, doctors instantly started surgery to get it out. The surgery took well over 10 hours, but after all the effort, doctors successfully removed the item, and O’Neil’s headaches ceased immediately.
O’Neil said that he felt completely different once doctors finished the surgery, and that it was like ‘a breath of fresh air’ for his head.
“I’ve always had trouble with headaches, growing up they’d come and go. Sometimes I’d have them for weeks at a time, sometimes they didn’t happen at all. But when they struck, they struck hard,” said O’Neil. “It was only the last few years that the fainting came with them. I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t have issues with my headache and pain.”
Doctors informed him that it had been a blue crayon that has been lodged in his brain, and when he was asked how it got up there, O’Neil began to laugh.
“I used to stick things in my nose a lot when I was a boy,” said O’Neil. “I didn’t realize that I forgot to take anything back out. My God, a crayon? It must have been up there since kindergarten.”
The crayon in his brain had apparently also made O’Neil color blind, and he wasn’t even aware of the issue. The doctor, who was wearing blue scrubs while attending to O’Neil, was shocked when he asked what color they were.
“Somehow, he lived most of his life with this crayon up his nasal cavity poking his brain. I believe that the crayon was actually hitting some important nerves connected to his eyes, and ironically he was never able to see the color blue before.”
“You’d think I’d have seen nothing but blue, you know? I’m just glad that the headaches are gone now. I’ll stick to colored pencils from here on out,” said O’Neil with a smile.