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Guatemalan twins' homecoming delayed
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The homecoming for conjoined Guatemalan twins separated in marathon surgery in August has been delayed because one needs more time to recover from surgical incisions, hospital officials said Monday. Maria de Jesus and Maria Teresa Quiej Alvarez were scheduled to be released Tuesday from Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA and return to their home in Guatemala. But doctors said Maria de Jesus has not fully healed from the last surgical procedure to clean and close her scalp incisions. "When we inspected Maria de Jesus' scalp last week, we found a wound the size of a quarter and attached a skin graft over it," said Dr. Henry Kawamoto Jr., lead plastic surgeon for the twins ' medical team. "When we rechecked her scalp on Sunday, we saw that most of the graft took. However, a small sliver of skin where the graft meets the wound remained open." The twins were joined at the head for the first 377 days of their lives before doctors in Los Angeles separated them in a 22-hour surgical procedure. Kawamoto said his team will continue to clean Maria de Jesus' wounds and monitor the healing process for the next several days before they can judge when she will be able to leave the hospital with her family. He emphasized that the twins are progressing well otherwise, but he said he wants to make certain that they are in the best possible condition before returning to Guatemala.
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