Good Luck little Girl
Operation begins on Indian girl with eight limbs
By Richard Holt and Peter Foster in New Delhi
Last Updated: 7:01am GMT 06/11/2007
Doctors in India have begun operating on a two-year old girl who was born with four arms and four legs.
Lakshmi Tatma is joined to what is known as a "parasitic twin" which stopped developing in the mother's womb.
Lakshmi with her mother Poonam and father Shambu
The operation to correct the rare condition - known as isciopagus - is expected to take up to 40 hours.
Locals in the northern state of Bihar believed the girl was "sent from God" when she was born to a poor rural family.
She is named after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms.
As news of her birth spread among the 500 inhabitants of Rampur Kodar Katti - a remote settlement without electricity or running water - men, women and children queued for a darshan, or blessing, from the baby.
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Some reportedly tried to make money from her. The girl's parents, Shambhu and Poonam, kept her in hiding after a circus apparently tried to buy their daughter, according to a report in the Hindustan Times.
The £100,000 operation will require differently skilled teams of more than 30 surgeons to work in eight-hour shifts to separate Lakshmi's spinal column and kidney from that of her twin.
After attempting to transplant the shared kidney wholly into Lakshmi's body, another team of surgeons will gradually close up her pelvic girdle while re-orientating her bladder and genital systems.
Plastic surgeons will then graft skin to cover her wounds while an "external fixator" will be attached to close her pelvis gradually over a three-week period.
Without the operation at the Narayana Health City, on the outskirts of Bangalore, Lakshmi's parents were told their daughter was unlikely to survive beyond early adolescence.
Dr Patil Mamatha said the girl, who cannot stand up or walk, was popular at the hospital and she expressed confidence in the operation.
"She's very playful and gets along well with others," she said.
"We have high hopes of everything going fine and everything is going fine now."
Her parents, who earn about 50p a day as casual labourers and are both in their twenties, were turned away by a government hospital when they asked for help to increase Lakshmi's chances of survival.
However, they were brought to Bangalore after Dr Sharan Patil, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon leading the operation, visited their village.
"We tried to take Lakshmi to hospital but they turned us away and said nothing could be done," Mrs Tatma said. "We saved money and even went to Delhi but the hospitals there turned us away too. Lakshmi had never once seen a doctor until Dr Patil came to our village and took an interest in our case.
"I believe that Lakshmi is a miracle, a reincarnation, but she is my daughter and she cannot live a normal life like this."
The hospital's foundation is paying for the surgery because Lakshmi's family can't afford the considerable cost of the operation.
Luckily, Lakshmi pulled through the operation just fine. As the surgical team leader, Dr. Sharon Patil, told reporters outside the hospital, "The child has withstood the procedure in an excellent manner. This girl can now lead as good a life as anyone else."
She may not be quite the goddess her villagers thought she was – but this brave little girl is one of a kind, no question. And she's already looking forward to her next challenge: Learning how to walk
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Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
Talha (1988-20??)
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Qatar Football group
http://www.qatarliving.com/node/43589
thanx 4 info
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Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
Talha (1988-20??)
********************************************************
Qatar Football group
http://www.qatarliving.com/node/43589
It was on the news...
She is doing fine and smiling even...
:)
You can't teach experience...
try to get the uptade tomoro
so v can know what happened
********************************************************
Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
Talha (1988-20??)
********************************************************
Qatar Football group
http://www.qatarliving.com/node/43589
I could only imagine what a difficult and very long surgery it would be. God be with them.
I'm not always right, but I'm never wrong :P - Garfield
God bless her
********************************************************
Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
Talha (1988-20??)
********************************************************
Qatar Football group
http://www.qatarliving.com/node/43589
Lakshmi Tatma, the daughter of a poor Indian labourer from the eastern Indian state of Bihar, was given an 80 per cent chance of pulling through the surgery which should enable her to walk and move like an ordinary child.
Lakshmi with her mother Poonam before the 24-hour operation
"She has withstood the operation, she is safe and doing well,” said Dr Sharan Patil, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon who led the 36-stong team that operated on Lakshmi,
"We will keep a close watch on her for the next 48 to 72 hours and won’t move from the hospital until she stabilises."
The £30,000 operation, which has been performed free of cost by the hospital, was fraught with difficulty as surgeons separated Lakshmi from the headless, "parasitic" twin that was attached to her pelvis at birth.
When she was born the inhabitants of her rural village believed she was a ’gift from God’ and christened her ’Lakshmi’ after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth.
Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam, were "overwhelmed" to hear that the surgery had been completed successfully and were allowed to see their daughter’s for just a few minutes yesterday afternoon.
The surgery had proved too traumatic for Poonam who collapsed and required sedation after watching her daughter going under general anaesthetic at the Narayana Health City on the outskirts of Bangalore on Tuesday.
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When Dr Patil went to tell the family about the success of the operation he was met by with dumbfounded silence from Lakshmi’s mother, who had not eaten for two days due to stress.
Later, after being admitted to the intensive care unit, both parents tenderly touched Lakshmi, appearing scared to move too close after doctors warned of the dangers of infection.
After applying antiseptic soap to their hands, they gently lifted up the covers and saw their daughter, swathed in bandages, but for the first time with two legs.
After leaving the intensive care unit, Poonam slumped against the wall and shed tears of relief as her husband comforted her.
As well as removing four extraneous limbs, surgeons also transplanted a healthy kidney from the headless twin to Lakshmi and used bone grafts to close her pelvic bones which were set at right-angles to each other.
Doctors said the closure of Lakshmi’s pelvis - a procedure which had been slated to take three weeks using an ’external fixator’ to apply gradual pressure - was an unexpected bonus.
"Every step was successful. There was no setback whatsoever," Dr Patil added, looking tired but content in a blue surgeon’s gown, "We were able to bring the pelvic bones together successfully, which takes away the need for another procedure."
Medical teams will now observe Lakshmi until she is out of immediate danger from the operation before assessing how successful they have been in giving her the chance to lead a normal life.
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