14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, surgeons at the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU in Virginia performed a 14-hour long surgery and succeeded in separating a pair of conjoined twin girls.
6-month-old A'zhari and A'zhiah Jones currently find themselves in stable condition, and doctors say that they are making progress towards recovery.
Apparently, these two girls were joined in their middle section, at the abdomen. More precisely, they shared both the liver and the pericardium (i.e. the fluid filled sac surrounding the heart and major blood vessels).
The doctors first operated on A'zhari and A'zhiah back in October 2012. At that time, they settled for dividing their liver and then closed back their abdominal cavity. Huffington Post quotes Dr. David Lanning, who wished to stress the fact that “Complete separation at that time would almost assuredly have resulted in their deaths as A’zhari was in renal failure and A’zhiah had severe cardiac hypertrophy. A phased surgery was the optimal plan.”
The final part of this complex two-phased procedure took place this past Monday, when doctors succeeded in completely separating the two girls.
Prior to their performing this second surgery, the doctors made sure that they had enough excess skin to close up the cuts and reconstruct the girls' bodies by placing tissue expanders in their abdomens.
The expanders were inserted this past February, the same source informs us.
“The plastic surgery team really worked to get closure of the chest and the abdomen. Even though they are closed now, we do plan to take A’zhari back after the swelling is gone down a little bit to advance some of the chest muscle flaps a bit more to provide a little bit better coverage of her heart,” Dr. David Lanning further detailed on the outcomes of this procedure.
A'zhari and A'zhiah Jones of Franklin, Virginia, were born October 10, 2012. At birth, their combined weight was one of 10 pounds (roughly 4.5 kilograms).