Revisit Lakshmi, the girl born with eight limbs, this weekend on National Geographic Channel.
June 18, 2008 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Announcements, Children, Health, Medicine, Misc., Morning News, Oddities, Surgery, disability
Remember Lakshmi Tatma, a Indian girl who was born with four arms and four legs. We first wrote about her in December 2007, saying…
The people of her rural Indian village did not see this as a deformity. They believed that she was a ‘gift from God’, christened her ‘Lakshmi‘ after the four-armed Hindu Goddess of wealth, and queued outside the house to be blessed by the girl.
But the actual cause of the extra limbs was that the girl had a twin who hadn’t fully developed and instead became attached to Lakshmi’s body at the pelvis.
Lakshmi made headlines around the world last month when a team of surgeons spent 27 hours removing the extra limbs, separating her spinal cord and kidney from the twin, re-orientating the bladder and genital systems, and then closing up the pelvic girdle.
It was an amazing story with a heartwarming ending…
Now, just three months after the surgery, she is taking her first steps. According to Sharan Patil, chief orthopedic surgeon and chairman of Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore where the surgery was performed, Lakshmi is ‘… “now moving with a walker, holding onto objects — a table, a chair — and moving a little bit…”
Now you can watch Lakshmi’s journey on National Geographic Channel this coming Sunday (22 June) at 9pm Pacific.
If, like me, you can’t get the National Geographic Channel you can still get learn more about Lakshmi by visiting National Geographic online.
View the picture gallery, read a Q&A with Doctor Sharan Patil (lead surgeon), and see a preview of the hour long episode at the National Geographic website.
It is a miracle that this girl did as well as she did!! Congratulations to her family, doctors and media that made it all possible for her. I wonder what is the update on her health at this point. She is 3yrs old now. Would her next surgery to bring the leg close together be all paid for as well?