Twin documentaries inspire ;br; reflection, gratitude

Published 12:00 am Thursday, June 8, 2000

Growing up with my twin sister, it was often hard to assert my individuality.

Thursday, June 08, 2000

Growing up with my twin sister, it was often hard to assert my individuality. No matter how hard we tried, Sharla and I were always compared to each other.

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We learned to deal with it, with the ignorant people who just assumed that Shar and I were just two halves who could be treated as one person. (You know how many birthday presents we had to share? How do people expect two four-year-olds to share one Barbie?)

I realize that struggle would have been all the more difficult if Shar and I had been born as Siamese twins.

It’s something that’s been on my mind since, in the past month, I’ve seen a two documentaries on the surgical separation of twins.

Wednesday I caught the last half-hour of a rebroadcast of a 1995 NOVA special. They recorded the preparation and procedure to separate Dao and Duan, Siamese twins from a Bangkok orphanage who were later adopted by an American couple. The twins were almost 4-years-old; the oldest twins to be separated.

The first documentary I had seen that aired on the Learning Channel documented the death of one twin. It was an outcome I hoped would not be repeated with Dao and Duan.

The twins did survive the procedure, but didn’t understand for weeks what had happened to them.

At three and a half, they were beginning to develop personalities that reflected the fact the two girls were physically joined together. When they were physically separated, they experienced the same phantom limb phenomenon that amputees undergo.

It was the same with the other girls on the Learning Channel. The little girls continually reached to where her twin sister had once been a part of her – even after that sister died.

Eventually, Dao and Duan came to realize that they were no longer physically a part of each other. They were two individuals and began to develop to very different personalities.

Also, they could hug each other, dance, play games, even fight – all the things little girls do.

Some Siamese twins are not so fortunate. The surgeries that can endure for 10 to 12 hours can take their toll on infants.

How tragic to lose that one person in the world who holds a special bond unlike any other.

As much as I, like most twins, resist the notion that twins are just two halves making up one person, I know there’s a bit of truth to that. We are both individuals, but if I ever lost my twin sister, a part of me would die too.

The relationship between all twins is summed up quite well with the last line of the NOVA special: "Although they are no longer joined together, Dao and Duan, like most twin girls, will probably be inseparable."