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The parents of conjoined twins, Emma and Taylor Bailey, who have only one heart face an agonising dilemma over their future.
The three-year-olds are fused from the breastbone down to the belly button, and share a heart and liver.
Doctors have told their parents Mandy, 32, and Tor, 34, from Queens Creek, Arizona, the girls will need to be separated in one to two years’ time.
Details of the operation are uncertain, but it is likely to mean both girls will need heart transplants and one will need a liver.
Mrs Bailey, who also has children Paige, 11, Drew, nine, Cole, seven, and Blake, two, said: “There’s a tiny window of time for a separation.
“We have to get it completely right, if we wait too long then the operation cannot go ahead.”
The twins’ single heart is becoming weaker because of the stress upon it and it is likely to fail if they are not separated.
Doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital have been assessing Emma and Taylor since they were a year old in preparation for the surgery.
If the operation is successful it will be the first time twins born with one heart will have been separated.
Mrs Bailey said: “We know we have to make difficult choices.
“We understand the risks. But we also understand the outcome if we don’t do anything.”
Before the twins were born the couple were told the twins’ single heart, which has seven chambers instead of four, was so large it would crush their lungs.
Mrs Bailey said: “We were told they’d live for minutes, and then they would suffocate. Tor was hoping to hear them cry just once.
“The girls were handed to him straight away and they simultaneously inhaled and quietly cried. It was a magical sound.” When the twins were well enough to be discharged, the future was still unknown. They were given oxygen and medication to strengthen their lungs. But they defied doctors and have grown into healthy and happy three-year-olds. Seattle Children’s Hospital would not discuss the details of any potential separation. It might involve finding a heart transplant for one sister, and then placing the other temporarily on an artificial heart until a second can be found.What about the countless other children suffering in this world
Was reading this story the other day – difficult decisions as well as heartbreaking.
@gazlan wrote:
What about the countless other children suffering in this world
Ah right that makes it a little less heartbreaking then… you’re either smoking way too much or just trying to be a prat… if it’s the latter you’re doing a bloody good job.
Being a prat is someone who tries to defend the abuse and suppression of a people who have no weapons to fight a fair fight….. why dont youy have a smoke….might make you remove your head from your $rse
@gazlan wrote:
Being a prat is someone who tries to defend the abuse and suppression of a people who have no weapons to fight a fair fight….. why dont youy have a smoke….might make you remove your head from your $rse
What like the kurds do you mean ? It’s a fucking toe up your arse you need wtf has suppression got to do with cojoined twins both of who will in all likelihood die
Toe up the $rse…….it wont ever be yours …….just calling a prat out
You be careful now you just might scare me
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8551118.stm
another tragedy
It is heartbreaking, and like so many other stories, one that i’m sure many of us are glad were not the ones having to make the choices.
In order for both of these girls to survive it quite possibly means that two other children will die, in whatever circumstances, for these two to receive heart and in the case of one of them anyway, a liver transplant.
It must be the worst kind of decision to have to make, not just for the parents, but for the surgeons and specialists involved in any procedure to seperate these two girls. There are risks that need to be addressed before any such procedure would be decided upon, so lets wait and see till then, and wish all of them, all the luck.
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