Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9312300154
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Yet on Wednesday, Angela marked a milestone, turning 6 months old - far too young to know she has rewritten medical history and defied predictions that she stood only a 1 percent chance of making it through surgery. She remains in intensive care in a Philadelphia hospital, breathing with a respirator, but she is growing, her heart is working well and doctors are hopeful about her future.
"Amazing? I don't know that definition," said Dr. Russell Raphaely, director of critical care at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "This is unusual. It's an extraordinary challenge we've been able to meet at the moment. She has been able to cope. We're pleased at that."
"She's hanging in there. She's looking real good," said Georgia Welsh, sister of Angela's mother, Reitha "Joey" Lakeberg, who declined to be interviewed. Both women visited the baby this month, bringing "Popeye" and other cartoon tapes and a Christmas dress for the red-haired infant who wears a wrist rattle and loves bright colors, lullabies - and cuddling.
Raphaely wouldn't predict when Angela could go home to Indiana. The baby was removed last Friday from an iron lung, he said, and she's now hooked up to a ventilator through a nose tube. She is fed through another tube.
The doctor said Angela is smaller than normal - 11 3/4 pounds - and her progress has slowed since early December; attempts to get her to breathe on her own by reducing the ventilator were unsuccessful.
"We'll provide the support for her and let her tell us when she's able to breathe," Raphaely said. "I would say that until she breathes by herself that we haven't gotten over the obstacles to her having a normal life."
Angela has survived longer than any twin who shared a heart and liver and has been treated at the Philadelphia hospital, one of few places in the world where these surgeries are performed. The longest any such baby had survived until now was three months, said Sarah Jarvis, a spokeswoman.
Angela was separated from her sister, Amy, in a 5 1/2-hour operation on Aug. 20. An 18-member surgical team cut apart their shared liver and rebuilt Angela's heart. Amy died during the operation; doctors had to sacrifice the weaker baby to try to save the other.
Dr. Jonathan Muraskas, the twins' neonatologist at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., had advised against surgery - he estimated the chances of one baby surviving at about 1 percent - and he has not changed his mind.
"I'm very happy for Angela," he said. "I would still make that same decision. If it was my wife, I wouldn't want to put my kids through that."
Last summer's heart-rending tale of the twins captured national headlines and stirred ethical debate, but it was quickly overshadowed by their father's troubles.
Kenneth Lakeberg, an unemployed welder from Wheatfield, Ind., was sent to prison in October for one year for violating probation for stabbing a cousin with a butcher knife on Christmas Day last year.
Lakeberg has admitted to abusing drugs and liquor and to spending about $1,300 in charitable contributions on a three-day cocaine binge before the twins' separation.
Lakeberg, who did not respond to interview requests, is imprisoned at the Indiana State Farm. He is eligible for release April 11.
The Lakebergs, who also have a 5-year-old daughter, were evicted from their trailer in June. Joey Lakeberg has been staying with her sister in Wheatfield.
A trust fund set up in an Indiana bank for the twins contains $5,600, but an official said contributions stopped coming in after word spread about Lakeberg's misuse of the other money.
Joey Lakeberg recently requested fund money to help furnish a nursery, but nothing can be disbursed until it is known whether those contributions must go to unpaid medical bills. The couple had no insurance.
Indiana Medicaid Director Jim Verdier said his agency told the Philadelphia hospital before surgery it wouldn't pay for the operation because it was experimental but would cover other daily costs.
Sarah Jarvis, of the Philadelphia hospital, said Indiana authorities have verbally rejected $10,000 in surgeon fees. She said the bill as of the end of November was $484,850.
by CNB