Nellis,
The titanium rod is the transmitter for the hearing device.
Mathematics for some reason I do not know why but my son and I were given brains that are naturally wired for mathematics. Neither of us learned math in school for some reason we just knew it. Here is a couple of examples. My son at 3 no exposure started running around the house yelling out 2+2=4, 3+3=6 and so on. I questioned the school he attended and the said no. He was attending a bilingual school so by the time he was in 4th grade he was becoming a handful. The French teacher said I know he gets every word I say but I cannot figure out how he gets it because he never seems to be paying attention. French was definitely a third language for him and not spoken in the home. We took him to a testing center during the middle of the test, the lady called me and said I just read this little boy a calculas problem and without paper and pencil he gave her the answer. If I do not have one of my headaches I can take a grocery receipt and add it up very quickly in my head. When my daughter came along she is six years younger then her brother she did not get this gift. We had to hire a tutor for math because my son and I have no absolute clue how to get the answer to a math problem by solving it we just know what the answer is.