Formerly Conjoined Babies Begin Recovery
Amy Forliti
ABC News
_______
Rochester, Minnesota(US)
For the parents of conjoined twins Abbigail and Isabelle Carlsen, placing their baby daughters on an operating table was one of the hardest moments.
But the daylong surgery worked. Doctors untangled their livers, repositioned their hearts and divided a shared intestine. The girls, who spent their first five months with their noses just inches apart, finally slept in separate beds Friday.
"We've had our prayers answered up to now," the girls' parents, Amy and Jesse Carlsen, wrote in a message posted Saturday on the family's Web journal. "And we will continue to pray for a perfect recovery."
The girls, separated by a team of Mayo Clinic surgeons, have a tough recovery ahead. On Saturday, they remained in intensive care under sedation, breathing with the assistance of ventilators, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement.
When the girls were born Nov. 29 to the Fargo, N.D., couple, they were joined at the diaphragm, pancreas and liver, and shared a common bile duct and part of an intestine.
May 13, 2006
Amy Forliti
ABC News
_______
Rochester, Minnesota(US)
For the parents of conjoined twins Abbigail and Isabelle Carlsen, placing their baby daughters on an operating table was one of the hardest moments.
But the daylong surgery worked. Doctors untangled their livers, repositioned their hearts and divided a shared intestine. The girls, who spent their first five months with their noses just inches apart, finally slept in separate beds Friday.
"We've had our prayers answered up to now," the girls' parents, Amy and Jesse Carlsen, wrote in a message posted Saturday on the family's Web journal. "And we will continue to pray for a perfect recovery."
The girls, separated by a team of Mayo Clinic surgeons, have a tough recovery ahead. On Saturday, they remained in intensive care under sedation, breathing with the assistance of ventilators, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement.
When the girls were born Nov. 29 to the Fargo, N.D., couple, they were joined at the diaphragm, pancreas and liver, and shared a common bile duct and part of an intestine.
May 13, 2006
