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Please Eat The Cake, But Not The Decorations

I know a lot of people (including myself) who just can't put the brakes on when given a piece of cake -- quickly gobbling down a big slice that's topped with rich, icy frosting.

Then licking the candles.

Then their fingers.

And anything else in sight that has some toppings on it.

Not always the best of ideas.

The New England Journal Of Medicine reports in this week's edition the "Case of the Overeager Cake Muncher."

And older person who loved cake so much, everything was shoveled down quickly and without pause. And I mean everything.

Including a plastic decoration shaped like a hatchet.

swallowed in error
Cake With A Hatchet (Dr. Dave Hnida)

The cake eater felt fine (must slid down the gullet okay), but then about a week later started to get a stomach ache, along with a fever.

The next thing you know, the cake eater had rock hard abdomen from the hatchet poking a small hole in the intestinal tract.

Ouch.

Fortunately, docs were able to remove the guilty hatchet, start antibiotics and the patient went home about a week later in good health.

From the picture, you can see the hatchet after removal in the a biopsy container, as well as a punch of arrows pointing to a vague hatchet shaped shadow on a scan before its removal.

The moral: you can have your cake and eat it too. But the same does not apply to plastic decorative toppings.

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