Doctors transplant kidney to Maliyah

A cheer went up in operating room 10 at Primary Children's Medical Center when Maliyah Herrin's new kidney started making urine, just minutes after it was implanted.

"Nice," said Dr. John Sorensen, one of the transplant surgeons. "It started working very well almost immediately" after it was connected to Maliyah's blood vessels and ureters, he later told reporters.

Formerly conjoined twin Maliyah Herrin was in critical condition after receiving a healthy kidney from her mom, Erin, on Tuesday.

Erin Herrin was listed in fair condition.

Maliyah and her twin sister Kendra, both 5, were born joined at the abdomen and shared various organs and a pelvis. Each girl controlled one leg and the kidney they both used was Kendra's. Maliyah had undergone dialysis three times a week since surgeons separated them in August.

The entire transplant took nearly seven hours and was much more straight forward than doctors had feared it would be.

"There were no complications," Sorensen said.

By the time Maliyah's surgery ended at 2:30 p.m., her mom was "mostly coherent" and asking about her, said Jake Herrin, Maliyah's dad and Erin's husband, who thanked the doctors repeatedly for what he called "miracle after miracle."

"Pleasantly surprised" is how Dr. Rebecka Meyers described what surgeons found as they prepared the child to receive the kidney. They'd feared challenges from scar tissue left over from a mammoth surgery in August that separated the twins. Instead, the surgeons found less scarring than expected. And the reconstruction the surgeons did during the 26-hour separation surgery to prepare for the kidney transplant they knew was to come has held up well, Meyers said.

"It's an extreme positive, because it tells us she heals well," she said.

They'd also worried about space for the kidney. But when they removed Erin's right kidney for transplant, they found it was petite for an adult kidney, and that helped, too, Meyer said. During the separation operation, surgeons had to rebuild the single abdomen, which was only slightly larger than a normal-sized child's abdomen, to give each girl her own. Erin's kidney fit snugly, but it fit, the transplant surgeons said.