If my twin had survived, how would she be? Would she have my wishy washy blue eyes, or the hair that never curled but remained straight. Of course, she or even he, did not have to be from the same egg, and probably was not, but we will never know because my twin never became more than a collection of cells embedded in my body in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I could have given Stephen King a model for writing a new roman, calling it “The Teratom” and my unborn twin might have become famous. It could have developed and taken over my body instead of remaining undiscovered until I reached the age of 50. It was always there, dormant and waiting for the day of its discovery. No eyes or bones were found and teeth had also not developped. It remained sitting in my tail bone dormant and just enjoying its host, which was me. One day, through some reason we will never know, it began to grow. Was there an electrical storm, an extra terrestrial signal, or perhaps the time was ready for an appearance. My twin, now to be known as a Teratome, began to grow.
Of course this did not go unnoticed and I was diagnosed with an abscess which was removed from my tail bone. However, five years later my twin decided to carry on and began to grow again. This time it was discovered, the suppressed twin that was just a collection of several different types of cells. My teratom was a boring teratom, just growing cells and nothing worth a mention in a scientific paper. It was removed again in a three hour operation. There was no ceremonial burial and I did not ask in the hospital for photos.
Five years later it returned. The sequel had arrived. These good books are always in three parts it seems and the big and final operation was made. I already had a scar horizontally across the lower part of my back from the last operation, but now it was the big McCoy and I got an interesting vertical scar at the front, making a curve around my navel. It was becoming interesting and after a 7 hour operation everything was removed, including my appendix and another spare part I no longer really needed. My days of motherhood were over. To be sure, the surgeon examined everything with a microscope to ensure that no cells were left that might have decided to grow again.
And that is the end of the story, it is the truth, the whole truth about how they eliminated by twin.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
Wow. Very strange and creepy with surgery on top of it. :O
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It all happened arund 20 years ago, but it is the truth. I was born with this and one day it began to grow. It can happen now and again. Luckily mine was benign, just a growing inconvenience.
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Shudder. Makes me think of Total Recall.
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But I survived to talk about it, that is the main thing
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Yep. 🙂
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That really is an interesting and definitely creepy story. And it would make a really good book for the creepy book readers amongst us!
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Problem being it is the truth and I spent almost two weeks in hospital recovering. I still have the scar today to prove it. It is not so uncommon, and it would be interesting to meet others that have had the same problem.
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I’ve read about such incidents before, it’s not as uncommon as you’d think. Truly glad you survived. I am a twin ( with a twin brother) and we were unexpected. Together we weighed in at 7.5 lbs. so caught the delivering doctor by surprise. The nurses called him back and said his work wasn’t finished. After delivering my brother he said, “A gentleman to the end.” lol
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Congratulations on twin experience. No it is not so seldom, and I know someone that had something similar living in my town. The teratom can be in many places, but mine was on the tail end and they also had to remove part of the tail.
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What an ordeal to go through. I lost a twin with both my daughter and son. Twins run in the family, every woman every generation had a twin boy and girl and my brother was the first boy twin to survive. My daughter didn’t have twins so I think it’s the end of twins in our family.
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My aunt had twins and she two brothers that were twins
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So twins run in your family as well then. Way cool!
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In my aunts family, she married my mum’s brother
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My dad was a twin, and his twin’s daughter had twins. My sister had two kids (not twins), and I had none. Occasionally the early development of the egg goes a little crazy, and stories like yours result. I’m glad you are still around to tell us about it.
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A teratom is not so rare, and if developed normally, would have become s twin. There are cases which are malign, but mine was just something that had to be removed
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At first I thought this was true. Then not. Then read the comments and went back to read your post yet again. Most amazing!
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It was an ordeal and I know, almost unbelievable
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That is creepy! I can’t imagine how painful that would have been,
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The pain was before the operation, that was how I knew something was wrong, especially at the beginning when I had the abscess
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I was born in 1944. They didn’t know mom was having twins. Nurses called doc and said “ here’s another one!”. We weighed a little over 3 lbs each. My twin sister is about 3 minutes older then I. We looked like wrinkled up old people and skin so transparent you could see our blood veins. Wrap us in gauze to protect us until we could finally go home. My sister first than I. When we were 7 we looked like 5 yrs old. When I was 21 my future in laws thought I was 18. Funny. We are lucky to be alive today as back then they didn’t expect to to live very long lives.
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Yes and there are no twins in either side of family so far and none in the past.
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Interesting. I was the twin that never was
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This is a very weird story! I’m glad you finally had the teratoma removed once and for all! Be well!
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I had never heard of it, but it happens more often than we think
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Unbelievable. Extraordinary. I’m so grateful that you shared that and in such an interesting way. But I imagine that you have left out a good deal of emotion as you touch on the what if… With your permission I’d like to share this with my secondary students in our work on narrative.
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That’s ok to share. It all happened some years ago now and luckily has never returned. I was left with a few complications, but nothing I have not been able to manage. When it happened I asked the doc if it was medical history, but he just laughed, so no big deal
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Yes, my husband did say (as I gasped and read it to him) that he’d heard of it before. The odd thing is that I currently teach so many sets of twins and the whole class loves twin dilemmas. Haha. Thank you.
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