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The Science and Spirit of Giants and Dwarfs
Posted on Sunday, July 29, 2007 (CDT) by Thoth
 "As soon as I step out the door," said Igor Vovkovinskiy, "everything changes." Vovkovinskiy, 24, is a 7-foot-8-inch giant whose home in Rochester, Minn., was custom-built for his enormous frame.
The house has cathedral ceilings and a 9-foot-long bed. Once he steps outside his front door, though, Vovkovinskiy towers above the rest of the world.
He is one of several people profiled in a new series of programs to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel exploring the worlds of giants and dwarfs and the anatomical engineering that makes them the way they are.
Despite the
vast differences in their size, what giants and dwarfs have in common
is their unique application of a skill that every human being learns in
one way or another: how to adapt to the world around you, regardless of
who, what or how big the world thinks you are.
"A lot of children come up
and ask me, 'Why are you little? What makes you little?'" said Susie
Campbell, a 3-foot-10-inch dwarf. "I just say & 'God made me this
way. I am little just like he made you have brown hair and blue eyes.'"
Based on birth records, it
is estimated that there are at least 15,000 people with dwarfism in the
United States. More than 200 different types of dwarfism have been
identified. Campbell has the most common form of dwarfism,
achondroplasia.
Campbell's parents and
brothers are all average size, and when she was born, in West Texas in
1961, her mother received some sage advice from her grandmother, "Take
her home and love her."
The Suscha Syndrome
At home in a suburb of
Baltimore, Campbell's family has gone to extraordinary lengths to carry
on that philosophy. She and her husband, Mark, adopted a daughter named
Suscha from a Russian orphanage, an institution that reminded them that
in some places, dwarfism still can mean isolation from the rest of
society.
"They brought this little
girl in," said Mark Campbell, "and she was looking down at her feet.
& She just looked up every once in a while and we both, right at
that moment, fell in love."
Suscha is still struggling
to pronounce words her two front teeth are missing but because of
the design of her jaw, her tongue also gets in the way. When she is an
adult, her skull will, in fact, grow larger than average. In ordinary
adults, fluid produced within the brain helps cushion the brain and
protect it from shock. In dwarfs, the opening through which that fluid
drains into the spinal column is smaller, causing some of the fluid to
back up and the skull to swell. That swelling accounts for the
distinctive shape of a dwarf's face.
Once the Campbells returned
with her to the United States, they discovered that Suscha had a form
of dwarfism that is unknown to doctors, complicated by the fact that
she was abandoned by her birth mother and that no family history is
available for her. The Campbells brought her to the Alfred I. DuPont
Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., to meet Dr. Charles Scott,
one of the world's experts on dwarfism.
"Her thigh bones are very
short and they are bowed in a sort of a forward direction," Scott told
the National Geographic Channel. "They're sort of like a boomerang."
That means that Suscha has
to stand and walk on her toes in a painful, half-crouched position. But
surgery, which may be performed in 2008, can help. Her specific type of
dwarfism that doctors couldn't identify is now called the Suscha
Syndrome.
'Like Any Other Family'
Joshua Campbell is another
story. The Campbells' 9-year-old biological son is not a dwarf and
already towers over his mother. Joshua is a boy of average height who
has absorbed the family's unusual diversity in his own way.
"I reach things for my mother," he said. "At the grocery store, it gets really important."
He is quick to explain to
his classmates why his parents are different. "They were made by God
and I love them," he said. "That's what I tell the little kids."
Mark Campbell completes
this remarkable family portrait. He is a systems analyst with the
Social Security Administration and has still another, much rarer, type
of dwarfism called hypochondroplasia.
At 4 feet, 7 inches, he is
taller than most dwarfs. His body proportions are closer to an average
human, but his arms are disproportionately short. He is beginning a
project to lower the kitchen counters in the family's suburban home,
but otherwise, the Campbells have had to do little to adapt their house
to their various sizes and strengths.
Height simply doesn't enter
into the equation, said Susie Campbell when asked what makes her family
with four such physically distinctive members unique.
"We are a family with a
mother, a father, a son and a daughter. We laugh, we have fun together.
& We are just like any other family. No different."
The Tallest Human Beings on Earth
While dwarfism stems from a
genetic mutation, the most familiar types of gigantism are created by
runaway activity in a pea-size gland that lies behind the nasal cavity
at the base of the brain the pituitary, which releases growth
hormones.
When Vovkovinskiy was 3
years old, he already was nearly 5 feet tall. Doctors discovered a
tumor in his pituitary that was causing his growth spurts.
At the age of 7,
Vovkovinskiy came to the United States from Ukraine to receive medical
treatment in an attempt to control his growth. His pituitary was
flooding his system with growth hormones and, in turn, triggering other
hormones that caused his bones to grow longer and longer. Those
chemical surges are what create pituitary giants, who are the tallest
human beings on Earth.
Surgeons at the Mayo Clinic
in Rochester, Minn., tried to take out the pituitary tumor, but it was
embedded too deeply for a complete removal. Vovkovinskiy kept growing.
At 7 feet, 8 inches, he is only an inch shorter than the Mongolian
herdsman identified by the 2007 Guinness World Records as the tallest
man on Earth, Bao Xishun (who gained worldwide attention in July when
he married a 5-foot-6-inch saleswoman). When the new Guinness World
Records come out next month, Leonid Stadnyk from the Ukraine will be
recognized as the world's tallest living man, at 8 feet, 5.5 inches.
Vovkovinskiy wears a size 25, 10-wide shoe.
"I'm having a terrible time
finding a pair of shoes that's comfortable and fits me right," he said.
"My feet have wounds on them and they're not going to heal anytime soon
unless I get a good pair of shoes."
Vovkovinskiy is a popular
figure with children, and friends say he has a heart of gold. By any
standard, it is a very large heart. According to the National
Geographic Channel, it weighs one-and-a-third pounds double the size
of an average person and pumps more than a half cup of blood with
each stroke.
Vovkovinskiy reached his
current height at the age of 21. When a pituitary giant reaches
puberty, hormones are released that signal the body to stop growing.
'Nothing Surprises Me'
Sandy Allen has survived
well beyond her own expectations. She recently celebrated her 52nd
birthday and, at 7 feet, 7 inches, she is still listed by the Guinness
book as the tallest woman in the world. But her legs can no longer
support her 420-pound body.
Allen lives in a nursing
home in Shelbyville, Ind. Friends help transport her around town in a
van that was purchased with donations to a local fund.
Allen's sense of humor more than matches her size.
"I've been asked everything
from how's your sex life to how do you sit on the toilet," she said
with a laugh. "So nothing surprises me."
She is an extreme fan of
the Indiana Pacers basketball team, which has supplied her with shoes
and a bed, among other personal items. When the Miami Heat's Shaquille
O'Neal heard about her, he sent her shoes and clothes.
O'Neal would be six inches
shorter than Allen if they stood side by side. He is also 95 pounds
lighter the height of basketball players is typically due to
"familial tall stature," or genes they inherit from one of their
parents.
After studying the
extensive information compiled for the National Geographic Channel
specials, we wondered whether there were things that giants and dwarfs
have in common. We arranged a meeting between Susie Campbell and Sandy
Allen to offer them a chance to swap stories.
Predictably, both learned early in life to cope with the reactions of others.
"I understand why people do
a double-take when they see me," said Allen. "They've probably never
seen anyone as big as I am so I understand that. But some people go out
of their way to make jacka--es of themselves & and those are the
people I learned a long time ago to feel sorry for."
According to Campbell, she
no longer sees such reactions as frequently. "Back in the '60s and '70s
when I was growing up, yes, I did see it a lot. And I think I was more
aware of it, too, being a young child. The older I became, I realized I
can't let that bother me. & If I take time out to notice a person
laughing, I've taken time out of my day and given it to them."
'I Like My Life'
Allen was already 6 feet, 3
inches tall by the age of 10. She remembers her adolescence, during
which she grew to 7 feet 7 inches, as a particularly trying time.
"In high school, I had two
girls that were my friends. And that was it. The rest of them wouldn't
have anything to do with me. I was too different. I was the local
freak."
Campbell said she didn't
have much experience dating in high school, but she did have an
organization Little People of America. "I got to go the national
conference once a year. And that was my dating time, dancing with
someone my own size and kind."
Allen has dated since high
school. "I have encountered a lot of men that are average in size that
are interested in tall women. Now people ask me if I'm married. And I
tell them I never got married because my ring finger is a size 16 and I
couldn't found a sucker rich enough to put a diamond that size on my
hand. But I guess I just wasn't interested in getting married. I was
happy living independently."
Personal independence is a
goal shared by people of every size, and Allen and Campbell both went
about it in her own way. But both acknowledged that learning how to ask
for and accept help was just as important.
"There were times when I
tried to climb the shelves of grocery stores," said Campbell. "I don't
do that anymore. I will ask somebody, 'Could you get that down for me,
please?'"
One lasting impression
these two women leave is the reservoir of good humor they maintain in
relating to other people. They are open and unashamed, and tolerant of
questions no matter how many times they have heard them and answered
them.
Because of her
circumstance, "I think I care more about people," Allen said. "As far
as I'm concerned, I'd much rather be a giver than a taker. I try to
make a joke out of things. & It's a lot easier to laugh than to
cry, I think. Crying sometimes it'll help release some emotions, but
I'd rather laugh."
"You know the old saying,
when life gives you lemons, make lemonade?" Campbell said. "I see that
she does it. It's evident right there."
"I like my life the way it
is," Allen said. "Getting in the Guinness Book of Records really
changed my life. It has given me the opportunity to travel all over the
world, see places I would only have dreamed of & and it sort of
brought me out of my shell."
"I don't blame God for
making me this way," Allen said. "I'm very proud of being tall. And
what I try to do if I can help even one person in my lifetime with
their attitude toward life, then it's all worth it."
Copyright: ABC News
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