He’s not a pea brain, he’s a pea lung: Doctors find sprout after Mass. man inhaled veggie
By Steve Leblanc, APThursday, August 12, 2010
Docs discover sprouting pea in Mass. man’s lung
BOSTON — Doctors say they have found a pea sprouting in the lung of a 75-year-old Massachusetts man.
Doctors feared the worst when they studied Ron Sveden’s (SVEE’-dehn) X-rays and spotted a small dark spot.
The former teacher had worked for years smoking fish and had already had emphysema before he felt his health take a turn for the worse this summer.
By the time Sveden reached the hospital, he had a collapsed left lung and pneumonia. Two biopsies came back negative for lung cancer.
Feeding a scope down Sveden’s throat, Dr. Jeff Spillane scraped away at an encrusted mass and discovered a sprout. Spillane says Sveden apparently inhaled a pea that took root in his lung.
Spillane removed it, and Sveden’s health has returned.
