A former conjoined twin has become a TikTok star by educating people about her rare condition, nine years after her sister passed away.
Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Garcia, 22, from Idaho Falls was born attached to her sister Micheala and the duo shared a pair of legs and kidneys, a bladder, and intestines.
They underwent an operation at eight months old to separate from each other.
Sadly Michaela passed away at the age of 13 in 2011, after a surgical mesh placed inside her stomach became infected.
Gabrielle has taken to TikTok to share her incredible story, with her videos quickly clocking up over a million views.
Former conjoined twin Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Garcia, 22, has become a TikTok star by educating people about her rare condition, nine years after her sister passed away
Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Garcia, 22, from Idaho Falls was born attached to her sister Micheala and the duo shared a pair of legs and kidneys, a bladder, and intestines
Gabrielle has taken to TikTok to share her incredible story, with her videos quickly clocking up over a million views
When Gabrielle’s mother, Karen Swarens, learned that she was pregnant with conjoined twins, she refused to get an abortion.
Gabrielle and her sister Karen were born at 36 1/2 weeks and remained attached for a further eight months until they underwent surgery lasting 12 hours.
After a successful operation, the twins suffered further medical complications in 2011, when the surgical mesh placed inside of their stomachs to act as a stomach wall became infected and they were both admitted to hospital.
While Gabriella was discharged from hospital on November 4, 2011, her sister passed away the day after, as the infection reached her bloodstream and caused her to become septic.
Sisters Gabrielle and Micheala pictured together as toddlers
Speaking of her pain at losing her sister, Gabrielle said: ‘I sit here and I wonder until I’m going crazy, all the what-ifs’
Gabrielle took to video-sharing social media platform TikTok to spread awareness about her rare condition
‘You see a lot of the times how dangerous surgical mesh can be because it’s kind of like a foreign object in the body, and sometimes our bodies reject it,’ Gabrielle told the East Idaho News.
Speaking of her pain at losing her sister, she told the publication: ‘I sit here and I wonder until I’m going crazy, all the what-ifs.
‘They say that time really is supposed to make everything better and make it easier, but some days I feel like it hurts more than the first day that it happened.’
Two months ago, Gabrielle decided she wanted to share her and her sister’s story, and took to video-sharing social media platform TikTok to spread awareness about her rare condition.
‘Because of how I was born, I got to know what it’s like growing up with the best friend in the whole world,’ she wrote of her sister in one clip, which has been viewed over 9 million times.
‘Because of how I was born, I got to know what it’s like growing up with the best friend in the whole world,’ she wrote of her sister in one clip, which has been viewed over 9 million times
‘With scars from the bottom of our tail bones, to the top of our shoulders, we were always reminded of our phenomenal connection,’ she wrote
Two months ago, Gabrielle decided she wanted to share her and her sister’s story, and took to video-sharing social media platform TikTok to spread awareness about her rare condition
‘And she made me who I am today.’
She adds in the video that conjoined twins occur in one in every 200,000 births.
On the platform Gabrielle explains how she has to use an ostomy bag as she doesn’t have a bladder, which was given to her sister when they underwent their operation as babies.
While answering questions about herself, she explains that she uses a wheelchair and has also been given a prosthetic leg, although she finds it uncomfortable and doesn’t use it often.
Gabrielle was recently informed that she has a brain tumour, a diagnosis which is unrelated to her being a conjoined twin.
She says her mantra is: ‘It’ll all be OK in the end, and if it’s not OK, then it’s not the end.’
‘I always live by that. I’m like, ‘this is just a mountain you’re going over right now, and it’s going to be OK.”