Formerly conjoined twins to return to Guatemala in January

Saturday December 21, 2002

By DAISY NGUYEN
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) They won't be home for Christmas, but the Guatemalan twins born joined at the head and separated in a marathon surgery will spend the holidays surrounded by nurses who have become their surrogate family.

``We're all disappointed for the family, that they won't be home for Christmas,'' said pediatric nursing director Clarice Marsh. ``But the nursing staff has really grown close to the twins and looks forward to celebrating the holiday with them.''

Marsh and other nurses who helped care for Maria de Jesus and Maria Teresa Quiej Alvarez before and after the 23-hour operation to separate them at the skull say they've come to know the girls and their parents well.

``What's most incredible is watching the family,'' said Maria Trujillo, a pediatric nurse. ``They're from this small, rural town in Guatemala and they've been displaced for so long. They've been under a great deal of stress, yet they care for one another like a true family unit.''

Dr. Jorge Lazareff said he expects the girls, who are 17 months old, to return home either the first or second week of January. He said they are in excellent clinical condition and are ready to go home at any time, but medical officials in Guatemala have asked for more time to prepare for the twins' arrival.

And so the family will celebrate the holidays at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital with other patients at the pediatric unit. The girls will have plenty of toys, sent from people ``from all over'' touched by their unlikely story, Marsh said.

``The fact that they've progressed this far is the best present of all,'' Marsh said.

The girls have been undergoing physical and occupational therapy and their development is about four months behind other children their age, but Marsh believed they will catch up.

Maria de Jesus sits in a highchair and moves her arms when she listens to music that her father plays to her, Trujillo said.

Doctors said Maria Teresa, who has struggled the most since the surgery and was recently fitted with a hearing aid, now turns her head, follows people with her eyes and cries.

``There's a lot more emotion,'' said Dr. Henry Kawamoto Jr., the lead plastic surgeon for the medical team.

Trujillo recalled seeing the girls when they first arrived to the hospital, when they were connected at the head and about to undergo the risky procedure.

It was fulfilling that four months after their surgery the girls were doing well on their own, she said.

``Just the other day I saw them going out in separate strollers,'' Trujillo said. ``It was great to see that.''

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)