Sometimes people joke about having extra arms and such to get more things done in life. Now that seems like it would be awesome, it seems this individual has lived with a couple extra arms and it hasn’t made her life any better.
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That individual is Veronica Cominguez who is just 14-years-old. In her short life, she has had to live with two extra arms and half-formed fingers on her stomach. This happened due to her parasitic twin not fully developing before birth.
In addition to the arms and fingers, there’s also a growth near her stomach which has muscles in it. Veronica says:
“When I was little, I thought it was just a foot. But as I grew up, it became bigger.
It’s heavy, it limits my movement. It keeps swinging. My dress often gets wet.”
Veronica’s mother, Flora Cominguez, knew she would have twins even though they were too poor to see a doctor. Her family had a history of twins and she had even picked names out for both of them.
Somehow though the second baby didn’t grow properly and that’s how Veronica came to have more than the normal amount of arms. Now what I can gather she doesn’t even have control over them, so they aren’t even the least bit helpful.
Flora says that a strange liquid comes from Veronica’s belly button sometimes as well and sometimes there is blood within that liquid. She said:
“The liquid that comes out of the opening smells bad, like human excretion.”
Now that Veronica is finally seeing a doctor, it seems that the procedure won’t be that bad to remove the extra limbs. Dr. Beda Espineda who is a surgeon at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center says that:
“Most of these cases can be removed because, usually, the body structures involved are not vital. Most of them are just attached to the skin or bones. For surgeons, it is easy to remove.”
When Veronica was first born, doctors advised for the limbs to be removed, but they didn’t have the money for the procedure. But the local people came together and pulled money in to be able to get Veronica a plane ticket to Thailand for the operation.
The Barangay council of Kabacsanan is responsible for Veronica due to being on welfare, but they wished her well in a statement:
“It has been arranged for Veronica to have an operation and we hope that she will live a normal, healthy life after this.
Life has not been easy for her but she’s a very sensible, clever and mature girl.
She’s a wonderful pupil. Everyone is very pleased for her that she can soon have an operation.”
We sure hope the surgery works out for her and her family!
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