A 24-year old man from Afghanistan recently went to doctors for help in explaining why he suffered from constant headaches, colds, and vision loss in one eye. What they found was astonishing.

The man had a 4-inch long pencil lodged in his sinuses that he never knew was there. Over the years, it damaged his eye socket and caused vision loss. He claims to have no clue how it might have gotten stuck in there, but says he took a bad fall as a child and thinks it might have happened then.

Doctors removed the pencil and the man is now recovering.

We all know the human body is capable of some crazy things–like functioning around a foreign object–but sometimes it does things that almost defy explanation. There have been documented cases of tumors growing fingernails and hair, and a similar case to the man with the pencil in 2007 when a woman underwent surgery for nosebleeds. Doctors found a 3-inch long pencil lodged in her head after a childhood accident more than 50 years prior.

“This was something unique because the trauma was so old,” said Dr. Hans Behrbohm, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Berlin’s Park-Klinik Weissensee. “She shouldn’t suffer any longer,” he said.