Jezebel: cute kid

Lakshmi: Now A Normal Girl, Still a Goddess

Megan — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:30:03 EDT

We have always had kind of an obsession with Lakshmi, the Indian girl born with a parasitic twin that gave her four arms and four legs. Well, Lakshmi and her family (who, you might recall, rightly refused to sell her to a circus) are the subjects of a National Geographic documentary this weekend and a 20/20 story tonight. After the surgery, her family had to move away from the town they lived in to avoid people that were angry at the surgery and thought they profited from it (they didn't), but Lakshmi's attending a school for disabled children and her parents still consider her a goddess. [ABC News]

Lakshmi Update!

Dodai — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:20:00 EST

Two-year-old Lakshmi Tatma, who survived the surgery conducted to separate her from the headless body of her absorbed twin, made her first public appearance today! She was carried into a conference holding a cookie, which she definitely deserves. [CNN]

Lakshmi Update!

mcarpentier — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:30:15 EST

Because we continue to be spellbound by her adorableness and her condition, we bring you the happy news that our favorite reincarnated Indian deity has woken up from her surgery! She wiggled her toes! She smiled at her parents! And the doctors released CTs and X-rays to help us all understand, which we provide for you after the jump.

Here, you can see more clearly that she was basically joined at the pelvis with the headless body of the absorbed twin. Yeah, it was a little disturbing writing that.

Here's little Lakshmi post-up, with only 4 limbs and one pelvis to her name. From my complete non-medical perspective, I am totally impressed with the doctors and not at all surprised that the surgery took 24 hours.

Girl Born With 8 Limbs Conscious, Smiles [Yahoo News]

While we could have chosen a photo of Lakshmi...

mcarpentier — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:45:00 EST

While we could have chosen a photo of Lakshmi all two-legged and wrapped in bandages with a breathing tube off her doctors' computer screen, our hormones just wouldn't let us not publish this photo. Lakshmi, who we cooed over yesterday, survived her 24 hour and $625,000 pro-bono surgery yesterday! She may have to have surgery for club feet and whatever, but she's got two legs, may likely walk, lead a relatively normal childhood from this point on, Zahara may have some competition in the cute department and, oh shit, I'm going to have to drink bourbon or something to get my cynicism back for the day. [Yahoo News]

Lakshmi was born with 4 arms and 4 legs,...

mcarpentier — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:45:00 EST

Lakshmi was born with 4 arms and 4 legs, having absorbed her own parasitic twin in utero (is it totally wrong to make a Kuato reference here?). Doctors report that they have to remove the extra limbs and organs, and that they expect her to survive but that she might not ever be able to walk. The real question, though, is: how does she manage to both kind of freak us out and look so darn cute at the same time? [Boston.com]