Source: China Daily

02-08-2009 12:53

With their angelic smiles these adorable twin sisters appear to be like any other healthy and happy three year old girls.

Rare condition: Three-year-old Katie (left) has had a transplant and twin sister Lauren (right) needs one too. [Agencies]

But little Lauren Williams is in desperate need of a heart transplant, her twin Katie is recovering from a heart swap and their mother also needs the life-saving surgery. The family have been diagnosed with the extremely rare heart condition dilated cardiomyopathy, which causes the heart to enlarge and pump blood less efficiently.

Katie was diagnosed at just three months old and got her new heart a few months later but she will need a second transplant in 10 years. Doctors originally thought Lauren had escaped the potentially fatal condition but now she's been diagnosed as being in the early stages as well - as has her mother Louise Snape, 31. Louise said: 'We live in limbo land. We have to take everyday as it comes.

'I lost my father to the condition and my sister, cousin and step brother have all died. 'The girls were a miracle and they mean the world to us but I can't think in weeks, I have to think in days and that's something I had to learn early on as a mum.'

Both Louise and Lauren need transplants as soon as possible.

Miss Snape grew up without knowing she had the condition because her father decided it would be kinder not to tell her.