OT: Odd medical (?) head protuberance

[Andrew Mawson]

I was in a tea room recently (Blue Pool, Dorset) and the chap on the next table had a very odd 'appendage' sticking out of his head behind his left ear. At first I thought that it was an ear mounted hearing aid on some sort of retainer, but discrete (hopefully!) further observation showed a tube of perhaps 3/4" diameter and 1.5" length sticking out of his hair a couple of inches further back from the ear and a bit higher, and had a metallic looking box about 1.5" x 2" x 3/4" (maybe slightly smaller) on it's end.

My first thought was it was impossibly vulnerable to knocks, and lying down in bed wasn't possible. So what the heck was it? Fellow was probably in his

70's, we had a normal bit of chit chat about the place and holidays in general and he was fully lucid.

... so what was it ? .... some sort of cerebral monitor or pacer .... I'm totally puzzled.

Andrew

[Tim+]

Bone anchored hearing air? Dimensions seem all wrong though.

[Bob Eager]

If you hadn't mentioned the box, I'd have said it was a temporary blood supply to some plastic surgery. I know of someone who has had his eye socket rebuilt after cancer (the eye went). He had a similar tube from his hairline down to the socket - I think he had it removed recently. The box could be some more advanced bit of technology to go with it.

[Chris Hogg]

A cochlear implant perhaps (a very fancy hearing-aid), although your description doesn't really fit the images on the web.

and let the headline picture scroll round for a minute or so.

[Brian Gaff]

Well some kind of treatment a bit like a pump you sometimes have for cancer drug delivery. These can be all over the body. Brian

[Andrew Mawson]

Chris I suspect that you're right - none on that site seems as rectangular as the one I saw, but many are pretty well dead on where it was located.

Andrew

[spuorgelgoog]

This is uk.d-i-y. Maybe he made it himself and got the box from Maplin :-)

Owain