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Chapter 1
Chapter 1

Dr. Johnson has asked me to start keeping this journal. I am sorry if I misspell somethings, she said it doesn’t really matter, just that it was good for me to get out all of my thoughts. Ok, well here is my story...

My mother was a drug dealer... we were poor. It has been a month since she was arrested and the DHS woman took me away. It has been a mix of the weirdest and greatest time of my life. You see, for 12, I’m really tiny... I’ve always been tiny, and for most of my life, while its been embarrassing, it has never been a real big (no pun intended) problem for me, my mom hated it though. At 38 inches tall and 45 pounds, that’s like a foot and a half shorter than the other girls in sixth grade even though I am a year older than most of them on account of my mom holding me back hoping I would get a little bigger. They kept growing, and I just didn’t. She never took me to a doctor; she said that’s just how some people are and I need to do my best to show them all how grown up I am. She always made it a point to make me wear “grown up” looking clothes. Since most things my size made me look a little childish, she would take larger clothes and try to alter them to fit me. It resulted in a kind of awkward hand me down kind of look.

Lately, I have been having a hard time with teasing and I can’t keep up with the other kids. My school even suggested that I participate in a special ed class this year. Its not that I am not smart enough... I don’t have the best math skills, but I think they are more worried about the way the other kids treat me. Then when we were on a trip to the city, mom got busted. It was the scariest night, the police were really cool to me, but you can imagine, watching you mother go off in handcuffs and bein taken away by some state woman that you didn’t know. That is how I finally got sent to live with Angela Chamberland.

That night, I was waiting in the car when my mom went in some hotel to pick up some “stuff”. I knew she was up to no good, but had no idea how bad it all was, then I heard the sirens and all the commotion, and a fat lady who said her name was Tamara came and told me that I had to go with her. I was in my night gown because we had been driving all night to get to the city, and now here I was not knowing anyone... or what was going to happen to me or my mom. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get myself to say anything. I just sat there shaking. Tamara, who I learned was a social worker, talked really soft to me and told me that I was going to spend the night with a foster mother named Angela. She said that Angela had other kids my age. It didn’t occur to me at that point that “my age” meant something different to Tamara at that time than It did to me.

Angela Chamberland is the nicest person I have ever met. She is loving, and caring like nobody else has ever been to me. When the DHS lady Tamara brought me to her house, I was really scared, but she was so nice... She just took me in and laid me on the couch and went into the kitchen to talk with Tamara. I could hear them talking about what had happened to my mom, and how she was trying to find someone to call for me. I knew there was no one to call. The only family that we had was my moms sister, and she is worse off than my mom. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in, wearing the most softest, comfortablest pajamies that I have ever warn. Then came the imbarisin part... I seemed to be wearin a diaper thingy too. I unzipped my blanket sleeper, I think I remember that that is what they are called and saw that I was in fact wearing pink disposable training pants with Disney Princesses on them. That was when Angela came in... Why am I wearing a diaper, I asked her. I think she was surprised at how well I could speak... I tried to explain everything to her, but she almost couldn’t believe I was 12 though when I tried to tell her. I started crying, and she called my school and they told her I was really who I said. Angela gave me a hug and cuddled me through it again. I also found out that my mom probably wasn’t going to be coming home for a long long time and I just cried and cried. It was a really hard time.

Angela apologized for the imbarisin underwear and explained that when I was dropped off last night, they weren’t sure how old I was. They guessed around 3 or 4 and after all, girls that age who have had such a rough time have accidents. Angela also explained that normally she takes care of foster kids in that age range and she would see if she had something more appropriate for my age to wear. After some rummaging around she brought in some size 3T pink Dora overalls telling me that that’s what she had that would fit me and asked if I could tried to ignore the snaps that went up the legs. These clothes were so much different from what I was used to... They actually fit me. The underwear were a little different though... they weren’t disposable, but it was quite obvious that they were still training pants. Angela apologized again that that was all she had available, and promised that if I wanted to we would go pick up something different later. After how nice she was, I just couldn’t complain.

After a morning of mixed emotions considering how great I was being treated compared to how bad things were going in my life Angela took me to Dr. Johnson’s office. All the foster kids have to get a checkup when they come into custody. Dr. Johnson did a few tests and finally for the first time explained to me why I was so much smaller than the other kids in my class. That was when for the first time in my life I was diagnosed with a rare type of Turners Syndrome.

The doc explained to me that it was a disorder that causes a deficiency in growth hormones and prevents normal growth and puberty. That’s why the other girls were startin to get breasts and hair and having growth spurts and I wasn’t. The kewl part was that Dr Johnson told me that I didn’t have to be small forever. She told me about hormone replacement therapy. She said that I would have to start getting a shot every week (ouch) but that I would start growing at a normal rate. The only problem was that I was currently in the 1 percentile of height and weight for my age. I was actually more like a short 4 year old or worse a tall 3 year old. Dr. Johnson explained to Angela and me that with regular shots in about 4 years I would be about the size of a regular 8 year old... and eventually I would be a regular sized adult... just a little behind schedule. It was at the same time one of the happiest and saddest times of my life.