Conjoined Twins Separated After 27-Hour Surgery, Growing Stronger Despite Challenges

Apr 19, 2019

Anias and Jadon McDonald were born fused at the skull. By the time they’d reached 13 months, the complex intertwining of their blood vessels and a shared layer of brain tissue meant that, if they remained unseparated, the twins faced a mortality rate of 80% by the age of two. And so their parents, Nicole and Christian, made the decision to allow Jadon and Anias to undergo craniopagus surgery in October of 2016.

"If that's what the boys needed, then that's what we were going to do. We were going to give them their best shot,” Christian told CNN. 

The surgery lasted 27 hours, cost $2.5 million, and proved to be only the beginning of a rocky road to recovery for the twins. Anias, especially, encountered increasing medical complications, including frequent seizures (up to 15, daily) and the development of eczema so severe that his legs and ankles looked like “raw meat.”

"What was hard was to see that he was on the same path as Jadon, and then something happened -- lots of things happened -- to pull him out of that race for a minute," Nicole said in the interview with CNN.

Anias faced mounting setbacks, all through 2018. He stopped rolling over. Then he stopped playing with toys. Fluid built up around his brain and weighed him down so much that he even stopped lifting his head. As Nicole noted, her son had not "just stopped development, but regressed in development."

"I thought I was losing him forever, and I was devastated," Nicole said.

Then doctors surgically removed Anias’ tonsils and adenoids, and he began making marked improvements, early in 2019. Most critically, he began breathing on his own, allowing the young boy to shed the array of medical equipment on which he’d previously become reliant.

"Anias had like Mount Everest medically," Nicole said. "That's what I've started to appreciate is, he climbed his medical mountain."

A hand-splattered painting the McDonald’s keep on their fridge bears testament to Anias’ improvement. The accompanying caption reads, “Painted this with the right hand that I’m not supposed to be able to use."

Compared to Jadon, who their mother described as being “like personality with feet,” Anias still faces serious developmental setbacks. Nicole, though, prefers to describe him as a “blank canvas waiting to be turned into a masterpiece.”

Watch the emotional story in the video below:

What do you think about the twin’s continuing recovery? Have you or one of your family members ever had to take a long road to a healthy recovery? Let us know your story in the comments and don't forget to spread the love by showing this article to your friends and family members.