Woman has pencil in head removed after 55 years

Colour pencils are seen as workers polish them with acetone at the Viarco factory in Sao Joao da Madeira, northern Portugal, April 10, 2007. A 59-year-old German woman has had most of a pencil removed from inside her head after suffering nearly her whole life with the headaches and nosebleeds it caused, Bild newspaper reported Monday.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 59-year-old German woman has had most of a pencil removed from inside her head after suffering nearly her whole life with the headaches and nosebleeds it caused, Bild newspaper reported on Monday.

Margret Wegner fell over carrying the pencil in her hand when she was four.

"The pencil went right through my skin -- and disappeared into my head," Wegner told the newspaper.

It narrowly missed vital parts of her brain.

At the time no one dared operate, but now technology has improved sufficiently for doctors to be able to remove it.

The majority of the pencil, some 8 cm (3.1 inches) long, was taken out in an operation at a private Berlin clinic, but the 2 cm tip had grown in so firmly that it was impossible to remove.