Craniosynostosis/Craniostenosis: A Case Study

At the age of just four months the fate of my success fell into another man’s hands, Dr. Benjamin Carson. My twin sister Jenna and I share an identical ear-to-ear scar. Some may be abashed by such a sizeable scar but every day the scar is a reminder of how dramatically different my life could have been. May 12, 1994 I was born prematurely next to my best friend. Devastatingly there was a small chance I was going to survive. Only weighing 3 pounds 12 ounces, I was a fighter and rebel. A few weeks following, my parents thought they brought home two healthy identical twin daughters. Months passed and slowly abnormal fluid inflammations started to form on our craniums. Something was seriously wrong. Our pediatrician diagnosed Jenna and I with Craniosynostosis. Craniosynostosis/Craniostenosis is a term I have been defining since I was twelve. It occurs when an infant’s joints in the skull fuse together and close up prematurely before the brain could develop. The diagnosis is more common then people think. One out of three thousand babies are diagnosed, but three out of four of those babies are boys. Very rarely both twins are diagnosed and even fewer identical female twins. …show more content…
Knowing Ben Carson’s background in neurosurgery/neuroscience and his history with twins, my father scheduled an appointment with Dr. Carson and his medical team. In a distressed, devastating time, he assured my family, we were in good hands. Ironically, his autobiography is titled “Gifted Hands” published in 1990, four years before my surgery. In the book Carson grew from a poor troubled child to the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins in 1987. Dr. Carson never heard of a case like ours. My sister and I would be the world-renowned neurosurgeon’s first craniosynostosis case where the set of monozygotic twins were