Ten-year-old twin girls each received a new kidney from the same donor in a record-breaking transplant last Wednesday. The nation's first simultaneous transplant for twins was performed by two teams totaling some 30 members at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

"If it wasn’t for this person believing in organ donation, this wouldn’t’ have happened so quickly," said their mother, Rachel Dalomba, to Ann Curry from the hospital in Chicago. "I just want to thank the donor family. They’re going through a lot right now."

Identical twins Nellie and Anji Palanco were suffering from a rare disease called cystinosis which had destroyed their kidneys. Dialysis kept them alive until the transplant had been performed.

"We hope that each girl will go out of the ICU later today and be ready for discharge if all goes well, the middle of next week," transplant director Richard Cohn said Friday.

"Anji's back to her old complaining self … and she's asking for a puppy and foot massages, so it's nice to see they're acting themselves so quickly after surgery," Dalomba said.

"They're doing great," Dr. Riccardo Superina, who performed the four-hour operation Anji, told the Sun Times. "Blood tests indicate the kidneys are working. We expect that with each passing day, kidney function will return rapidly back to normal."

Cystinosis, which both twins had, is a hereditary disorder of the renal tubules which causes the body to accumulate the amino acid cystine within cells. Cystine forms crystals which damage many systems in the body, especially the kidneys and eyes.

Symptoms of this deadly disease are first seen at about 3 to 18 months of age. The disease ultimately generates kidney failure by age 6 years. There is an approximated 25 percent recurrence risk to any couple who have had an affected child.

The donor was the victim of a car crash.