Parasitic Twin/ Craniopagus parasiticus

We had an interesting foetal malformation delivered in the hospital 3 nights ago. At around 11 in the evening on Saturday, a lady came into the maternity section, in labour but who curiously was not progressing. This was put down to the fact that the presenting part was breech and since her labour was prolonged the patient was sent up to theatre for an emergency C/section to deliver her of the child.

Intra-op on opening the uterus and delivering through the incision, there was a massive mass attached to the occipital area of the foetal head, which forced an extended incision on the uterus to allow its delivery.

As can be seen, there is accessory tissue at the right of the picture, extending from the occipital bone of the otherwise healthy female baby.

At the junction between the normal head and the accessory tissue can be seen the partially formed face of the parasitic twin, including the malformed facial features of a single eye, a single nostril and a deformed mouth.

On examining the patient, as we moved her around, the parasitic twin was disturbed and started to make sucking sounds with his mouth and actually you could see the movement of the mouth and the twin trying to open the eyes. This movement was NOT related to any movement of the normal looking twin and could apparently point to presence of independent brain matter that is in control of the parasitic twin tissue. Here is a close-up of the parasitic twin.

The rest of the tissues appears obsolete and without any visible function. More information on this type of anomaly can be found in the site at Wikipedia and in various other forums.. search for parasitic twin.

If you would like to assist financially or otherwise, this particular patient and his family please contact me through +254 722 223334 or email me at to_arif@yahoo.com

Devastating News

"Inna Lillahi wa Innailahi rajiy'un"
"Verily from God we come from, and to him shall we return"

We had a death in the family. My mother's younger sister passed away in the United Kingdom after braving a long fight against cancer. She was an amazing person, always chirpy and sweet, with a kind word and action for everybody around her. Inshallah she is in a better place. Amen

Value of Life

I went to work yesterday to help out a friend who had a head injury following an assault. On getting to the hospital, imagine my surprise to see a man sprawled face up, half on the curb the rest on the road, with a lady evidently his relative, standing non-chalantly next to him. Having seen many alcoholics in similar positions and worse i took him to be just another drunkard.

But something didnt smell right. For one, the alco-ho's normally get picked up at night rarely during the day, and this guy was deathly quiet. Not moving or nothing. All this was going through my mind as i was getting my stuff out of the car and walking into our A & E. With my curiousity piqued.. i decided to give him a closer look.

I found a young, african male about 60 kgs. There was no pulse, no respiratory effort and the pupils were fixed and dilated. In short, the poor fellow was deceased. The surprising thing was that he was still warm, meaning he had JUST died, probably in the preceeding few minutes. And the relative was not even bothered when i explained to her what had just transpired. She went on staring into space. I helped get the body into A & E so that he could be logged in and taken to the mortuary.. which in itself in our setup, is a process and a half..

Anyway, it never fails to bother me how little life is valued in our part of the world. Is it that the death rate is so high? or is the value of life literally not as valuable as in a more prosperous country? maybe im too cynical, but seeing so many avoidable deaths can really jade your outlook.