"We have been truly in awe of the parents who have brought their twins to us," he says. Surgery is still rare and only half survive.įamilies with twins require much support. Usually, they share organ systems that cannot survive independently. When conjoined twins are not separated, there are "strong medical reasons not to do so," according to Moir. How intimately and intricately they are designed."Īs for the Hensel twins, when Abby drinks caffeinated coffee, Brittany can feel it immediately and her heart, which is weaker, races.Īs for their emotional bond, one friend remarks, "They finish each other's sentences - they both know what the other is thinking and what she is going to say. You give one a shot and the other is immunized, one catches a cold and so does the other. "They share a body throughout their development in utero and it continues after they are delivered. The psychological bonds between conjoined twins are well-known. "Their own individual uniqueness is a joy to watch."
"These kids show a fusion of spirit, where you see their separate personalities, even though they are conjoined," he says. Moir has seen the same with his patients. Their friends laugh when they overhear the twins "in the background bickering" over the choice of a blouse or a pair of shoes. But Brittany is more "laid back and chill" and has a "weird" sense of humor.Ībby wins some arguments and Brittany wins others. Abby is the more gregarious and outspoken of the two, according to their large group of friends. Like Abby and Brittany, conjoined twins have distinct personalities. We were raised to believe we could do anything we wanted to do." "But our parents never let us use that as an excuse. "People have been curious about us since we were born, for obvious reasons," say the twins in the first episode of the eight-week series. But by age 6, they were appearing on "Oprah" and the cover of Life magazine.
When the twins were born in 1990, their parents were told the babies might not survive the night. Their updated story, "Abby & Brittany," told in documentary form when they were 12 and again at 16, will air Tuesday, Sept. There are compromises that have to be made - Abby controls the right side of the body and Brittany the left - but they move with remarkable ease, riding a bike, dancing at parties and even driving a car. The 22-year-olds from rural Minnesota are identical conjoined twins and their physiology has never stood in the way. They may have two separate brains, hearts and sets of lungs, but they share everything else, including, as they say, "a normal life.
17, 2012— - Abby and Brittany Hensel are close - very close.
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