Thumbs up for Toronto surgeons.....

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...10287450000_17


Twins recovering following separation surgery
CTV.ca News Staff

A pair of seven-month-old twin boys from Zimbabwe who were joined at the abdomen and shared a liver are recovering in Toronto's Sick Kids hospital after successful separation surgery.

The boys, Tinashe and Tinotenda, are recovering in the critical care unit, where they are in critical condition on life-support. Dr. Jacob Langer, chief of general surgery, says that's normal after this type of surgery and says they will remain in intensive care for about a week.

Langer says the surgery went as planned, with no unexpected complications, but the boys still face risks.

"While we are optimistic about their prognosis, the boys must be monitored for any risk of infection or bleeding,'' he said Monday afternoon following the five-hour-long surgery.

The operation had been expected to last eight hours but went better than expected.

"Everything went really well, and we didn't find any surprises," Langer told CTV's Canada AM. "So we got finished more quickly than expected."

The surgical team was made up of about 25 staff members, including two general surgeons, two plastic surgeons, and two anesthetists. There were also eight nurses and a number of surgical and anesthesia residents.

All of the doctors involved waived approximately $200,000 in fees for their time on the surgery.

The boys, who have cleft lips and palates, will still have to undergo surgery to correct those problems before they go home. As well, doctors will attempt to straighten their spines, which became curved because of the way they were attached.

"But other than that, I think that they're going to end up growing up like normal kids. That's our hope anyway," said Langer.

The boys were delivered in July at a Salvation Army hospital with the help of Canadian physicians in a rural part of Zimbabwe. They arrived at Sick Kids in early December accompanied by a nurse and their mother, Elizabeth Mufuka, a peasant farmer and a single parent.

Mufuka told reporters she is immensely grateful for the doctors' help with her sons, whose names mean "God is with us" and "We thank God" in English.

The boys are the 10th set of conjoined twins to be treated at Sick Kids. The hospital says it is the only facility able to offer both the expertise and the financial assistance needed.

The boys' expenses are being covered by the Herbie Fund, which has helped more than 450 children from more than 80 countries travel to Sick Kids to receive care unavailable in their own countries.

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