A chopstick stuck in a toddler’s brain for 10 days was finally removed by surgeons. The boy is now in stable condition and is recovering from the operation and the brain infection the injury has caused.
The toddler is from Chaoyang City in Northern China and during a meal, he decided to stick a chopstick up his nose. Unfortunately, the child fell from his stool and the chopstick got lodged into nose and brain.
Hanghang, the little boy, was eating Chow Mein with both his parents when the unfortunate event happened. The boy’s parents took him to the doctor’s office, where only a part of the chopstick was removed and the toddler was sent home. Both the doctor who did the initial removal and his parents believed that the entire chopstick was removed.
The doctors who were in charge of his supervision at the hospital did not order any X-rays, which would have shown that the boy still had a 2 ½ inch-chopstick in his brain. They just took the visible part of the chopstick out and sent him home after minor physical examination.
But, 10 days after he was released from the local hospital, he started experiencing mental fatigue and drowsiness, so his parents rushed him to the hospital.
The hospital staff and Hanghang’s parents were shocked when they got the X-ray results back. The child still had a piece of chopstick in his brain and he was rushed to the surgery.
The surgery was a complete success and the rest of the 2 ½ chopstick was removed. While the toddler showed great improvements following the surgery, he still needs to stay a few more days in the hospital to treat the infection that the chopstick caused inside his brain.
Doctors say that Hanghang is very fortunate that the piece of wood hit a non-functional part of the brain. A child’s brain is very adaptive and can assign functions to new areas that don’t usually perform such functions.
Cases like this are quite common in China. Just last year, a 2 year-old boy from Wuhan, had a similar accident. Fortunately, his operation also succeeded and he is now fine.
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