Formerly conjoined twin, 5-year-old Maliyah Herrin, is doing well after getting a new kidney from her mother April 3.
"We can't believe how perfect things went," her father, Jake Herrin, wrote on the family Web site after the transplant. "Thanks for all the support and prayers; we know they worked yet again."
Born conjoined at the abdomen, Maliyah and her twin, Kendra, were surgically separated last August. Because the twins had shared some organs, including the one kidney that was Kendra's, Maliyah had been on dialysis three days a week prior to the transplant. The donor was her mother, Erin. Sister Herrin was released from the hospital on April 8.
The daily reports on Maliyah's steadily improving condition in the hospital's immuno-compromised unit are "a good kind of boring," said Primary Children's hospital spokeswoman Bonnie Midget. (For reports on the twins, please see Church News, Aug. 19, 2006, p. 6; Sept. 9, 2006, p. 11; Sept. 23, 2006, p. 6.)
