B'lore docs light up Lakshmi's life

B'lore docs light up Lakshmi's life
By Bala Chauhan, DH News Service, Bangalore:
At 12:30am on Wednesday when Dr Sharan Shivraj Patil disengaged the parasitic twin from Lakshmi and held it separately, chief anaesthetist Dr Yohannan John looked at him, smiled, and said, "Lakshmi is stable."


Everyone in the operation theatre broke into celebrations. “It was the most thrilling moment for all of us in the OT. The next minute we got back to reconstructing Lakshmi because we didn’t want to waste any time,” said Dr Patil, chief orthopaedic surgeon and chairman, Sparsh Hospital, Narayana Health City, Bangalore.

Dr Patil led the team of surgeons and doctors comprising doctors Yohannan John, Ashley D’Cruz, Thimappa Hegde, Ashok Koul, and Sanjay Rao.

The Diwali link

Two-year-old Lakshmi Tatma was born with a conjoined parasitic twin in a remote village on the Bihar-Nepal border two years ago, on Diwali.

She had eight limbs and was venerated as Goddess Lakshmi. Dr Sharan came to know about her and visited her parents in September this year and convinced them that he could separate Lakshmi from her half-formed twin.

The family arrived in Bangalore and Lakshmi was successfully operated upon on November 6 and 7. The entire surgery lasted 27 hours, non-stop.

After disengaging the parasitic twin from Lakshmi, the surgeons got on to doing the reconstruction work at around 12:30 am. The procedure was over by 9:30 am on Wednesday, after which Lakshmi was taken into the ICU and put on the ventilator.

“Though she’s stable and steadily making progress, we will have to keep her under observation for the next 48-72 hours,” said Dr Patil.

Lashmi’s parents — Shambhu and Poonam, along with her sibling Mithilesh, visited her in the ICU for a brief period at around 2.30pm.

“When they saw Lakshmi, they couldn’t hold themselves. Poonam broke down to see her child look normal, with two legs and hands. She smiled at me. This was the first time I saw her smile in the last two months I’ve known them. She has not eaten in the last 34 hours and it’s not good for her as she is six months’ pregnant,” he added.

Regarding Lakshmi’s future, Dr Sharan said, “God willing, she will be able to walk soon. We will have to put her through a rehabilitation and physiotherapy programme. She may also need surgery because she has club feet. Right now, we have put plaster to hold them,” said Dr Sharan.

The surgeons have made sure that Lakshmi leads a normal life. “We have pushed the second kidney, which was in her twin, to the right place and even her reproductive organs have been placed properly. She had two urinary tracts and excretory openings and her pelvic ring was not formed. We did the correction surgery and have closed the pelvic ring,” he added.

“This was an unchartered territory for all of us. We did not know what to expect but the meticulous planning, in terms of sequencing the surgery, planning the manpower and the co-ordinated effort of the team for over a month helped us in doing the procedure successfully,” he added.

Lakshmi has received support from people across the world. “Lots of people are sending in donations and messaging us wishing her speedy recovery. We received messages from Shah Rukh Khan and several Kannada cine stars,” said Dr Sharan.