Monday, July 07, 2003

As I type this, conjoined twins, Ladan and Laleh Bijani are forty hours into a marathon surgery-fest in order to separate them. Without wishing to be too Pollyana about this, it really makes my sprained ankle pale into insignificance. Just saw the video tape of them on Channel 4 news - they've spent twenty-nine years literally joined at the head. Heard the press guy at the Raffles Hospital in Singapore (I used to live round the corner, name-drop, country-drop), talk about how they have to separate their brains, as there are more lesions than they thought.

For some reason, I got all choked up: combination of the wonder of medical science, the ocassional generosity of human nature (the entire team of nine surgeons has waived its fee), and how they've lived for the past however long, and the fact that the whole world knows their hopes and dreams (one wants to go back to their home town to be a lawyer, the other wants to be a journalist). Here's wishing them the best, and that by the time I get up on Tuesday morning, it'll be good news.

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