New Delhi: The surgery was successful – these are the four words that put a smile on everybody’s face in Bangalore when a marathon operation on two-year-old Laksmi, who was born with four arms and four legs, went well.
A team of 30 doctors at the Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore successfully removed the child's extra limbs, salvaged her organs and rebuilt her pelvis area in a 27-hour surgery, which was completed much before the estimated time. The doctors had earlier estimated that it could take them 40 hours.
Lakshmi is now recovering in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, but the real heroes of the day were the doctors, who despite all odds, made sure that Lakshmi could lead a new and better life soon.
Dr Sharan Shivraj Patil who led the surgery spoke to CNN-IBN and said it is indeed a proud moment for him. “We had to go very slowly in a step by step manner. In fact, we had to identify each structure time and again. Also we had to understand the vascularity so that we don’t burn any bridges. Our team did a wonderful job in that aspect and once we did that we had to salvage the kidney.”
“I should proudly say that the orthopedic team was brilliant. We separated the bones, which belonged to Lakshmi and in fact we did innovate a few things and retained some part of the parasitic twin to reconstruct the pelvis. This is because her pelvis did not have enough bone to reconstruct,” Patil explained.
Even during the surgery, Patil said he made sure that Lakshmi’s parents were well informed about their daughter’s condition.
“Her mother has been a little dazed and she has not been eating much. Time to time I have been going to her. In between the surgery I have been very conscious of the stress that she is undergoing. It’s always a policy in this hospital that we talk to the parents and keep them informed,” Patil said.
However, Dr Thimappa Hegde, who was part of the team that conducted the surgery, said the next few days are crucial for Lakshmi.
“The challenge right now is for Lakshmi to recover from the surgery. Subsequently her urinary functioning will be under observation and finally her ability to stand and walk. Also her kidney functioning and general metabolic state is being checked right now. The difficult bit was to finish the operation as quickly as possible with minimum blood loss. She is a baby and almost half her body had to be detached, so a lot of care had to be taken in this regard. Hopefully, we do not have to operate on her immediately. At least not before two to three weeks,” Hegde said.
The marathon surgery that started on Tuesday at 0700 hours IST lasted till 1000 hours IST on Wednesday.
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