One look, and Mescal Hunt knew the nurse joining her on the hospital elevator had to be one of the Easley twins.

There had been rumors that one of them had come back to Atlanta Medical Center. Her photo had been posted on a bulletin board of the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.

Shana Easley was older now than when she and her sister Shelley arrived there, barely alive, in 1979 - but Hunt was sure.

"You're one of the Easley twins, aren't you?" Hunt asked the young nurse.

"Yeah, I'm Shana."

"You have a sister named Shelley, right?" Hunt asked. "I remember when you were a baby. I used to take care of you."

Twenty-four years have passed since the Easley babies were in Hunt's care, but she remembers them arriving by ambulance just hours after their birth at Hamilton Memorial Hospital in Dalton.

Back then there was no such thing as LifeFlight, and Atlanta Medical was Georgia Baptist Hospital.

Together, Shelley and Shana Easley weighed 5 pounds. Shelley was the larger of the two at 2 pounds, 13 ounces, but she was also sicker. Once, Shelley was bleeding from every opening in her body. When neither of her parents could give her blood, a nurse volunteered, and Shelley's blood started clotting again.

No one believed either of them would survive. Three months later, when the twins were well enough to go home, they each weighed 5 pounds and were healthy.

When their first birthday rolled around they weighed just 12 pounds, their mother Dana Easley remembered recently. "But they could walk," she said, "and by the time they were 4, they'd caught up with their peers."

Every year, the twins would return to the medical center at Christmas for its annual "miracle day." It was a happy time, but heart-rending to see fellow preemies who hadn't fared as well. Some were in wheelchairs. Others had various disabilities.

Although Shelley, an English teacher at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, grew up terrified of hospitals, Shana was curious about the men and women at the hospital she saw on her return visits at Christmas, and would follow them around.

A nurse's outfit became her favorite Halloween costume; playing nurse her favorite pastime. She became a candy striper at Hamilton and did a mentorship there. She got a nursing degree and, about two years ago, joined the staff at Atlanta Medical Center.

Now she was talking to a fellow staff member who once helped take care of her.

"I couldn't believe she remembered," Shana said recently. "She remembered my entire family."

- This article was reprinted from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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