In November I posted about Lakshmi, the young girl with eight limbs, four from a conjoined twin which didn’t fully develop. At that time she had a lengthy operation to remove the extra limbs.
I was pleased to read a CNN update on Lakshmi saying she’s doing well:
Lakshmi Tatma whirls around in her walker at a charity school for disabled children in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, one tiny arm holding a balloon, her bandaged legs splayed wide apart, an enormous smile on her face.
Twirling in a wheeled plastic disc is unremarkable for most 2-year-olds but a big achievement for Lakshmi, a child born with eight limbs who her rural villagers believed was a goddess, not a girl, and who underwent a surgery last fall unlike any her doctors had ever performed.
06-24-2008 |
2 Comments »Yesterday a team of 36 doctors in India did a lengthy operation on a two year old with two extra arms and legs. She was this way because the partly developed body of a twin – consisting only of limbs, torso and internal organs – was fused to her at the pelvis. Lakshmi could move all her limbs but she couldn’t walk.
Lakshmi was in the hospital for a month first to build up her strength; when she first came in she was malnourished and had a low hemoglobin count. The operation was complex: doctors needed to make a break in the one spinal cord joining her to the partial body and then move one of her kidneys, which was previously located partly in each body. A lot of reconstruction and skin grafts were required also.
The head surgeon has reported that the operation went very well. She’s now under observation to make sure no complications develop. Read the rest of this entry »
11-07-2007 |
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