Twin Sisters That Are Conjoined Thrive After Being Separated

Oct 14, 2020

Twins Eva and Erika Sandoval spent a majority of their infancy in the hospital due to a very rare condition. In addition to being twins, the children were also born conjoined.

Being a conjoined twin is a rare condition with a low survival rate, and it is a miracle that the girls have survived this condition. After a long surgery in 2016 and plenty of physical therapy, the girls are now separated and as happy as can be.

Eva and Erika share the most precious bonds that any pair of siblings could have. The pair celebrated their sixth birthday in August.

The twins remained conjoined until they reached two years of age because it would have been life-threatening to separate them from birth. As a result, the twins spent the majority of their lives in the hospital, according to the 'About' section on their Facebook page. The twins finally celebrated their individual birthdays when they each turned three years of age.

When the parents of Eva and Erika received the news of their conjoined children, they were devastated and prepared for the worst. Such twins are extremely rare and have a low chance of survival. Nearly half of all conjoined twins are born stillborn and even more die within a day.

ABC News reported that shortly after the birth of the twins, their parents reached out to an esteemed surgeon from Lucile Packard Stanford Children's Hospital in California. Dr. Gary Hartman has performed six separation surgeries, and it is safe to say that he was more than qualified to deal with their situation.

Dr. Hartman made sure to give the parents a heads-up about the outcome of the surgery before proceeding. He claimed that even if the separation was possible, there was a chance that the twins would have a poor quality of life.

The twins were born in 2014 and spent the first seven months of their life in the hospital, according to the Sacramento Bee. At the age of two, their health began to decline, and they required surgery to survive. The surgery was a lengthy process and took 17 hours to complete.

The girls were sent home three months after their surgery and they began to attend physical therapy. Because they were so weak, they could not walk on their own and required the use of wheelchairs or strollers. The surgery had left both children with one leg each, meaning that they would require the use of prosthetic legs.

According to Stanford Children's Hospital, the children are now in kindergarten and have adapted to using their walkers and prosthetic legs to move around. Their doctors eventually aim to have the girls use walking sticks instead of walkers for support and balance.

Their mother says that Erika has already grown accustomed to her prosthetic leg. The children have come a long way since their infancy in the hospital.

Looking at them now, you could not tell that they had any medical issues. Like any other child, they find amusement in playing with Barbie dolls, finger puppets, and kinetic sand. Their mother claims that they are also very talkative and tend to use big words during their casual conversations.

The twins love seeing photos of themselves from when they were younger. Because they do not remember what it was like to be conjoined, they find it interesting that such a thing could have happened to them. With the help of physical therapy and the supervision of their doctors, the twins are to expect long and happy lives.

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