Ester Akello came to Columbus from Uganda in December of 2014.
It was the mother's mission to give her baby girls, Acen and Apio who were born joined at the pelvic and hip region, a better life.
She’d never been out of her village in Africa or even on an airplane. There was also the issue of an incredible language barrier.
In an amazing stroke of luck, one of the two people in the United States who speaks the same exact language and dialect as Akello works as an interpreter at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
It would be a tremendous help in helping her understand her daughters’ care.
“Their surgery is going to be very helpful to the children, they will be able to feed like normal children and crawl like normal children-- now they cannot crawl,” Akello said.
Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Dr. Gail Besner led the surgical team of more than 30 specialists through what would be an intricate and complex procedure on September 3.
The medical team was made up of specialists from plastic surgery, colorectal surgery, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, and specialized nursing teams.
The surgery started at 7:30 a.m. and ended just before midnight. Each worked in shifts, for example, the pediatric neurosurgeons worked for six hours. All told, it was an 18 hour procedure.
They took an innovative approach bringing in a team to guide them in determining which nerves went to Apio and which nerves were those of Acen.
Dr. Besner said it was essential to the entire procedure.
“That really helped in determining where to make those intricate and important division lines once the babies began to be separated,” she said.
The baby girls will remain in the hospital for several weeks to months recovering and receiving treatment.
There is at least one more surgery ahead for them to remove their colostomies.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital reports they have separated four sets of conjoined twins including Acen and Apio since 1978.