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Eleven months ago, Ballenie and Bellanie Camacho were born in Moca, in the Dominican Republic. Their mother, Laurilin, knew she was having twins, but neither she nor her doctor realized that she would be having conjoined twins. The girls were pygopagus twins – twins that were conjoined at the hip.
"In that moment when the doctor had them in his hands, he said, 'Blessed be God, they are Siamese twins," Laurilin recalled. "I said, 'well, God, they are yours.' "
But the joy of the twins’ births was short-lived. Ballenie (the smaller twin) was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition. There was a chance she might die, and jeopardize Bellanie’s health.
“The girls were worse every day,” said their father, Marino.
But still, the family persisted and remained at the hospital until a cardiologist advised them to seek help from a different hospital. If they waited any longer, there was a chance neither girl would survive.
That was when Laurilin and Marino brought their girls to Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in New York, where a massive team of doctors – nurses, neurosurgeons, orthopedic, urological, gastrointestinal, pediatric and plastic surgeons – would come together to perform a life-changing separation surgery on the girls.
The team took about three months to prepare for the “herculean” operation, and on the morning of, there were nerves and tears everywhere.
Lead surgeon Dr. Samir Pandya recalled that Marino was fighting tears when he passed his daughters over. Dr. Pandya made to comfort him, but Marino interrupted, “In life, you lose every battle that you have not participated in. Tomorrow, you do battle for my daughters, and we pray for you, and we do battle with you.”
Thankfully, the operation went smoothly. "We are very happy with how everything was choreographed and coordinated and worked out in the operating room,” Dr. Pandya reported.
More time is still needed to determine if the girls will be able to walk independently and have children in the future (their uteruses were also affected), but for now, the family and medical team are relieved to be past the thick of it and focus on recovering day by day.
You can watch a news clip of the twins here:
