Twins separate yet together
Tears flow as parents are reunited with their critically ill girls in ICU
About 8:30 a.m., about 25 hours after doctors at Primary Children's Medical Center began surgery to separate the girls, who were born joined mid-torso, Maliyah was moved into the pediatric intensive-care unit, where she began the earliest part of her recovery. Surgeons finished closing skin over Kendra's surgery wounds about an hour later and placed her bed next to her sister's.
The twins, 4, are both critically ill. Even though the surgery went "really, really well," according to pediatric surgeon Dr. Rebecka Meyers, who coordinated the complex separation, the girls are very swollen, in pain and have had a lot of stress placed on their small bodies. They are under heavy sedation to control the pain — "imagine someone just came and took away half your body," Meyers said.
They are also on ventilators to support their breathing and will be monitored closely in the intensive-care unit for at least a week. They are expected to stay in the hospital for about a month.
Like the surgery itself, doctors can only predict how long initial recovery will take. "They could have the (ventilation) tube out in two or three days or two or three weeks, and neither would surprise me," Meyers said.
The hours following the separation were emotional. Meyers cried, she said, when her colleague Dr. Michael Matlak carried Kendra to a different operating room right after the girls were separated. She cried again when she told the twins' parents, Jake and Erin Herrin, of North Salt Lake, how well things went. And the mid-morning reunion of the parents and the twins was filled with "happy tears and sad tears," said Bonnie Midget, hospital spokeswoman.
Each girl now has one leg, and further surgery is needed to prepare them for prosthetic legs. How well they will maneuver on them is unknown, dependent in part on "how hard they want to to work. They will be able to walk, but it will require a lot of effort. How much motivation each has is not something I can decide," Meyers said. "Kids are very motivated by nature."
The girls have used Kendra's one kidney, accessed by Maliyah through the liver they shared. Once that was divided, Maliyah lost that access and will need dialysis until she has a kidney transplant. Erin Herrin hopes she'll be able to donate a kidney to Maliyah in a few months, but first the little girl has to heal. The surgeons also split the twins' intestines and rebuilt their bladders and pelvic rings.
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