For the past nine months, expectant parents Janet and Bob Marshall prayed every day for conjoined twins. The young couple was crushed when Janet delivered two normal separate twins last week. “Of course I love my children no matter what,” said Janet, “but what mother doesn’t want what’s best for her kids? I just want them to have the best life they can have, as two people connected by a shared liver.”
Bob, too, was disappointed. “I always imagined taking my kids to the park, throwing a ball around, and getting unfairly angry at the people around me for staring at the abomination my wife and I had spawned.” But then a miracle happened, making headlines throughout the medical community.
In the first ever operation of its kind, Dr. Toboggan joined the infants together in a 22-hour surgery. He even rendered them absolutely dependent on each other to survive. “Yes, now they’re pretty much inseparable,” he explained. “I doubt any time in the near future we will have the technical know-how or the technology to separate them.”
Nevertheless, according to Dr. Toboggan, there is a small chance that the twins might become separated again later in life if they walk too quickly in opposite directions. To avoid this outcome, they will come in for follow-up surgeries every year until they reach adulthood.
