In sixth grade, I was the tallest in my class and very thin. When I got off the train returning from summer camp in NC, my mother cried, saying I looked like someone liberated from a concentration camp.
I felt fine and had lots of energy. My height didn't bother me, except at dancing class where I always loomed over potential partners. On the plus side was the fact that I could consume huge amounts of food without gaining weight.
But my mother, looking into the future and envisioning a skinny giant of an old maid, hanging about the house, decided to seek medical intervention.
And so, in the summer after the seventh grade, I was taken to a clinic in north Georgia that specialized in aberrations of human growth. It was a very weird experience-- all I really remember was a building with few windows and before and after pictures of naked children standing next to a measuring chart. I really hoped I wouldn't have my picture taken like that.
I must have been x-rayed at some point for I remember the doctor telling my mother that my wrist bones were still hollow which meant I could grow a good bit more--maybe to over six feet.
To my mother, that was a catastrophe. So steps were taken. I think a series of shots, maybe steroids, were prescribed. I don't remember having an opinion or being asked for one--it just happened.
I topped out at a little over 5'8"--though age and two pregnancies have taken away an inch.
Sometimes I've wondered what my life would have been like at over six feet--no big deal for a woman these days but kinda freakish back in the Fifties. A model? A Rockette? An athlete? (Despite my total lack of suitability or ability for any of these.)
But now, after having done a bit of online snooping, I find that there is NO approved method for limiting growth short (!) of, in rare cases, surgery to reduce leg length.
So what was I given? Was this some sort of experiment? And did it work or not?
I'll probably never know.
