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MELBOURNE: Two Bangladeshi twins look set to make a full recovery from surgery to part their conjoined heads, doctors said on Thursday, as one woke up and started talking just two days after the operation.
Australian neurosurgeon Wirginia Maixner said two-year-old Trishna and Krishna, rescued from a Dhaka orphanage, would both be "fine" despite the perilous procedure.
"Long-term, after seeing the scans I think they will be fine. It's all looking really good," Maixner told reporters at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital.
Earlier Trishna, the stronger twin, awoke from a medical coma in "fantastic" condition, apparently shrugging off the 32-hour operation, which was initially given only a one-in-four chance of complete success.
Trishna, who was greeted by her guardian Moira Kelly, has floored doctors with her progress and is even ready to leave intensive care, Maixner said.
"Trishna we allowed to wake up overnight and she looks brilliant. She's talking, she's being Trishna, she's behaving the way she always has done," the surgeon said, adding her sister's recovery could be a "little stormy".
"We will begin to wake her up later today but it will be a slow wake-up," she said. "Krishna still has to adjust to her new way of being and how long it will take her to do that is hard to estimate."
The developments cap an amazing story that saw the ailing twins brought to Australia two years ago before being nursed back to health.
Specialist surgeons worked through the night on Monday to separate the girls' skulls, brains and blood vessels before reconstructive experts closed up their heads to prevent infection.
"I think I did the chicken dance – a very short version of it – because that was when we actually could say we had done it," Maixner said, referring to the moment she saw their "fantastic" brain scans.
"To separate them, bring them through alive and in good condition – wow. That was the moment."
Maixner said both girls faced a difficult adjustment from their earlier life together, during which they chatted and squabbled like normal toddlers and developed a unique system of crawling on their backs.
"Moira said (Trishna) started to react as if she was missing Krishna beside her, and Moira patted her back to say Krishna was sleeping and that seemed to calm her down," she said.
"Certainly there's a period of readjustment and that's something as a medical team we are very much aware of. We will certainly provide support for the girls as we ease them into this new life that we've created."
The saga has captivated Australian media and prompted emotional scenes at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, where their guardian Kelly appeared overcome.
"It's a miracle we have here at the hospital... I can't comprehend, it's like being in the twilight zone," a tearful Kelly said on Wednesday.
Former carers at the Mother Teresa home in the back streets of the Bangladeshi capital have been praying fervently for the girls, who were born in December 2006 and quickly abandoned by their shocked parents.
"It was sad when they left, but we also knew that this was their only chance to live," Hyacinth, a fellow orphan, told AFP at the home. "We often call Australia and we think about them often. On the day of the operation, we prayed all day."
- AFP/vm/so
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