Yeah, babies!
Separated twins leave hosp for normal lives
THE PARENTS of formerly conjoined twins had two reasons to cheer Friday as their resilient baby girls were released from a Westchester County hospital.
Little Ballenie and Bellanie Camacho were cleared to leave the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla two months after they were separated in a remarkable 21-hour surgery.
“Today we’re experiencing much happiness,” the girls’ father Abel Camacho told the Daily News.
“We’re very anxious to start this next chapter, and we’re also very satisfied with the work that the hospital has done for us.”
The 1-year-old girls were born conjoined at the lower back. They had gastrointestinal connections and shared a branch of a major artery that supplies blood to the pelvic region, upper legs and reproductive organs.
Camacho and his wife Laurilin Celadilla were seeking a miracle when they brought the twins to New York from their native Dominican Republic last year.
Doctors pulled off the feat in a painstaking procedure that stretched two days starting Jan. 17.
More than 50 medical professionals, after practicing on 3-D models of the girls’ bodies, took turns dealing with a host of issues including spinal separation, nerve work and plastic surgery.
The girls’ recovery has gone smoothly but doctors have still had to perform skin grafts and other plastic surgery techniques to patch up the areas where they were separated.
“We’re so happy to see them separated and healthy,” Celadilla said Friday. “But we’re especially hopeful and happy that they may have a normal life, that they may grow like normal children — play, walk, run, study, just like other children.”
Pediatric surgeon Dr. Whitney McBride said chances are good that Celadilla’s wish will be granted.
“Bellanie’s sitting up on her own. She’s pretty much ready to walk out of the hospital,” McBride said. “And her twin is making very good progress as well.”
The twins are “right on track” in their playfulness and cognitive function, the doctor added.
“They’re two beautiful girls who will hopefully have a wonderful quality of life doing all the things other children do,” McBride said.
The family will spend the next few months at the Ronald McDonald House of the Greater Hudson Valley in Valhalla, where the girls will receive physical and occupational therapy.
They hope to return to the Dominican Republic before September.
But amid their jubilation, the parents are worried about settling back into their former life.
As they remained at their babies’ sides over the past several months, they were forced to leave their jobs and abandon their home.
Supporters of the family have set up a GoFundMe page — hoping to help them cover the costs of providing the girls a normal life.
“We will have to return to our country,” Celadilla said. “However, we don’t have a home to return to.”