My Story

by Kate

hi guys

I was bored an looking through yahoo groups and saw this club and thought maybe you'd like to hear my story so you can know what it's really like being a tall girl and growing and not like in these stories I read online where someone grows like exactly one inch a month for a years ...cuz thats not how it happens, it goes it spurts, liek what the group name says, and i had a really big one last year :) i'll try to add what details I remember...i never thought i'd post my whole growth history on the internet, but really, it's prety short...unlike me lol

first off a bit about me and my family, we live in a small town in Minnesota like hours from nowhere (boring :) and both my parents are tall...my dad was even a basketball player in europe for awhile, that's where he met mom, she was model and like to think i've got some of her good looks lol. my little brother and sister are tall too, but for awhile it seemed like I wasn't gonna get in on it at all, last may when I gratuated from highschool I was 5'2 which isn't too short but when your in a house with a bunch of tall people you feel like a munchkin :) I'd just turned 18 and I remember thinkin I wasn't gonna get any taller, but my mom kept sayin' she grew until she was in her 20s, so I was hoping maybe I'd get to be 5'9. But that was like impossible, I thought, since it's over a half foot in only a couple years, and I'd only grown an inch since I got my drivers liscense when I was 16. but i kept hoping for that late growth spurt...little did i know lol

I remember it was Memorial day and we were cooking out and i went to put on my sneakers which i hadn't worn in awhile, and my size 6s seemed really small...that was the first I thought about it. We went to the big sales the next day and I went to buy new shoes and measured out at an 8 1/2...now for someone as tiny as I was that was huge! i couldn't believe it, all that night i just stared at my huge (to me) feet...my mom said that she had small feet until she had her late growth spurt, so I felt alittle better...but 5'2 isn't so bad, but 5'2 with big old pontoons would really suck i said...:) it's hard to believe i thought 8 1/2 was huge tho now, you'll find out why :)

a couple weeks later I saw my friend erica and we got to talking and she asked how tall i was, and i said 5'2 but I thought I was growing...and she said she thought so too because she was 5'4 and was always taller than me, but now it seemed like we were the same size...we stood back to back and sure enough were were the same! wow, i thought 5'4, i guess i am having my growth spurt...2 inches was great, and if I could get a couple more before summer was over I could be 5'6 which I thought would actually be pretty good. :) little did I know that erica was actually 5'5 and she underestimated her height, so I was actually growing even faster...but I didn't find that out until later. the other thing was that my 8 1/2 were now too small...but I didn't say anything because I didn't really want to know how big my feet had gotten...so for most of the rest of the summer I just went barefoot. It's easy around here because there ain't much to do in the first place lol

so most of the time i went barefoot and just wore shorts and t-shirts or 'wifebeaters' lol...but at the end of June my mom took my sister and I shopping for jeans since my sis..her name is Susie... had outgrown hers...she was 5'11 at the time, and only 11...like I said, tall family...but anyway, I got measured too since I knew I'd been growing too..I barely squeezed into one of her old size 10s to go to the mall which is like an hour away...it turned out I was now a 36 inseam, same as her...I couldn't believe it, but we stood up and looked and sure enough our legs were the same length...and she was a few inches taller than me overall! :) I measured at a little over 5'7, which I thought was awesome...I was only hoping for 5'6 or so. We both only got a couple pairs, since like my mom said we were still growing girls...well, i don't think i ever wore those jeans again because of what happened next...:)

i'd read somewhere that they found that babies could sometimes grow like over an inch a night, so at this point I started measuring myself every morning just to see if I was still growing. only in the morning, because you shrink a little bit during the day from the pressure of walking around...like a half inch or so at max, but still more than you'd grow in a night you'd think :) but that's true, you do change height during the day...astronauts in space grow a couple inches b/c there's no gravity, did you know that? they go back to their old size when they land tho so no gaining height that way forever :) but anyway, I remember it was the night of the fourth of july, and we'd had a big cookout, and I'd had a ton to eat all day, (I'd been really eating alot all summer lol) and after fireworks I was lying in my bed and i just couldn't sleep, you know when you just toss and turn and look at the clock every couple hours, i mean you kinda drift in an out...well, I was like that...and when I lay real still, I swore I could feel myself growing...I thought I was prolly imagining it, but it was like a tiny movement, like stretching but not...really hard to explain...like I said I was prolly imagining lol...but I ended up finally getting to sleep and stayed in bed past noon, which is really weird for me. But when I finally woke up I went over to the doorframe and all I know was on the 4th I was a little under 5'8 and that day I was 5'9 1/2...I told my mom and she told me again about her growth spurt, and I said, yeah, but mom at this rate I'll be like 8 foot tall! but she said she grew 6 inches one summer and then a couple inches in the years after that, and i'd just do the same (she's 6'1) so i said i guess...but at this point i started raiding my sister's clothes alot more, even tho they weren't really my style (she was 11!) they fit and it was summer so it's not like i was impressing anyone. but I teased her, saying that I was coming for her...she'd been taller than me for almost two years (how strange is that, looking up at your 9 1/2 year old sister??? :)))

So after that my parents and her went to visit my grandparents out of state of a week a half...my bro was still around but he wasn't really around lol since he was out with his friends all the time even tho I was supposed to be watchin' him (he was only 15) and it was really hot and I got lazy...sometimes I didn't even wear a shirt (I had a sports bra on, you sickos:))) so I just lounged around for 10 days...I was really uncomfortable, between the air conditoning not working, and I couldn't sleep right, and my back hurt for no reason. But I finally made myself presentable when everyone came back and I met them as they drove up...Sus was the first one out the back of the SUV and I went to hug her and the first thing said was 'Holy sh*t Katie!" my mom doesn't like her cursing but that's another story :) but I instantly knew what she was talking about..she was looking slightly up at me! and then she looked down to see if I was wearing shoes, but I wasn't...and she was! That was all she talked about that night, that I was taller than her now...my mom even talked about going to see the doctor to see if anything was wrong, or at least see how tall i was gonna get (they estimated at 5'9 when I was 15 and they took me because I was so much smaller than the rest of my family, but they said I was normal and fine..but I was well past that now) but I talked her out of it. Sus did want to measure us both...so we went to the door frame where we measured on birthdays and marked with pencils...she was a bit over 6'0...which normally she would have been really happy about, since she'd been looking forward to being 6'0 all year (she really likes being so tall, which I thought was weird at the time, but oh well) but I measured twice just to be sure...I was 6'2! That was impossible, I'd grown a foot taller in less than 2 months! When my mom asked I lied and said I was a half inch taller than Sus, since I didn't want to freak her out too much.But that night I was excited and scared...i mean, i was tall now! really tall, taller than my mom (I slouched whenever I went by her so she couldn't tell) and I didn't know when it would stop...or if i wanted it too...

but that week I went from borrowing sis's clothes to borrowing mom's....they were loose on me, but that was good, since susie's tight little things were killing me...that week, I started just feeling like crap...I didn't have energy to do anything, I thought it was just the heat...we finally got the air conditioning fixed, but one night, I think it was the 23rd of July, Sus wanted to play me in a basketball game (which I wasn't good at to start with, but she said now that I was taller than her again it's be a challenge) and she bugged me until I said yea...but I was still terrible, nothing felt the right size, I was clumsy to the max, and she beat me by...well, alot. I went back inside for some water, and I was just realizing that I could see over the fridge for the first time when, I guess I just blacked out. I woke up in the hospital, and found out that I'd passed out but mom had heard me and they'd drove me to the ER...the doctors said it was a combination heat exhaustion and a imbalance of body chemicals...basically, I wasn't eating enough (I thought I'd been eating fine!) so they hooked me up to an IV and kept me for 'observation'...which sucked, since i was bored out of my mind. Of course, mom told them about my spurt, so they did tests, and surprised the heck of me when they said I was 6'5...I mean, 6'5...that's..that's huge. And then I also realized looking at myself how skinny I looked...like I was just stretched out. They considered treating me for a gland problem, even though they really couldn't find anything wrong, but then my dad walked in and they were convinced otherwise, that maybe it was natural after all (did I mention he's 7'1?? :):) They estimated I'd end up 6'9 or so. "6'9!" I thought...just a couple months ago 5'9 seemed impossible. But for the next few days I stayed in bed and rested and just tried to gain my strength and some weight back. And watched crappy tv. So not that different from home lol...But finally after a week I felt better and wanted to go home...they finally said ok, but wanted me to check back after a month, which again sucked since it's an hour and half drive, but what can you do right? well, I figured i'd still been growing in the hospital, but I didn't know how much until I was walking out the door to my room talking to a nurse I thought was cute (tho he was a few inches shorter than me, big change) and then suddenly I was on the floor and my head hurt...I'd hit my head on the doorframe...I was taller than the door! I got measured there at the hospital on one of those swing-arm things, and I almost stretched it to the limit...6'8! Yikes! I said maybe that 6'9 might not be a good estimate! They ran some more x-rays before I left and now said 6'10.

The doctors gave me a protein shake thing, like what weightlifters use, I guess, except that it actually worked...which was a good thing, since I drank that for about all the rest of the summer...it tasted awful, but it kept me from getting too hungry, which was a good thing...and I ate just about everything else...it was pretty cool eating whatever i wanted, on doctor's orders, knowing i wasn't going to gain weight...well, okay that i wasn't going to get fat since I sure was gaining weight :):) I measured every week on doctor's orders too, and I wasn't growing as fast anymore (not that I could!) it was so weird...the jump from 'normal' at 5'7 or so to 'freak' at 6'8 came so quick...I was short, and then tall...I never had a chance to be normal, really. I was still growing really fast too, even slowed down...towards the end of august, I was getting close to 7'! I know this sounds bizarre, but I was thinking the same thing! On the last day of August I finally measured myself in the morning and I'd hit 7'...I sorta mentioned it at breakfast and everyone was like 'oh, that's nice.' I was like 'SEVEN FEET TALL! I'm almost as tall as you,dad! and I'm still getting bigger' and he said something like 'well, I'm tall too, and I don't make a fuss about it' well I was pissed, and ran back to my room and cried...I mean, it's not like I hated being tall...I liked it, really...but it was just too much...too fast...and my family was being totally unsupportive...well, Sus came in to cheer me up...it was so weird, she was towering over me on graduation day, and now she barely came up to my shoulders...but she said they had a suprise for me, so I went out with her to the living room (remembering to duck! :) Well, all my family was there, and a couple of my friends, and they had a big banner that said 'happy 7 feet tall' and a cake with 7 candles on it...pretty dorky, but it made me feel better...my brother acted all pissed, said 'they didn't do anything like this for me' but he was nice (I think I forgot to mention, he's 7'4! but he stopped growing last year...early bloomer, took after my dad.) And I got gifts, which was cool...including a pair of sneakers. They were huge! but dad said they were from a friend of his in the Italian basketball league (he orders alot of them from a company,these weren't ones he wore, ewww! lol) , and that even if they were big I'd grow into them...(he and Josh my brother both wear even bigger sizes)...I looked at the label...'18 mens'...that's like a 20 womens! I tried them on to see how much room I had...and they were tight! I had to undo the laces and squeeze in! I couldn't believe it, I'd grown like 14 sizes...in three months! it's a good thing I didn't wear shoes all summer, I would have bankrupted my folks (just kidding, they're pretty well off, fortunately..since we have to special order so much stuff that my mom doesn't make herself) :) So I felt better after the 'party' and it seemed like my growth spurt was finally slowing down...I started making plans for going off to college soon...it was weird, none of the people there would ever know me as a short person...I'd always be 'tall Kate'..when I applied I was only 5'2, I'm glad that it didn't have 'height' on the application or they'd never believe it was me lol... I thought 7 foot was a good size. but that Labor day, after a cookout (what is it with me and cookouts??? lol) I had another rough night and didn't wake up until after 2pm...Josh and Sus were already back in school so my mom finally came in to wake me up, feet hanging over the bed and head stuffed under a pillow...my bed had been way too small for awhile, but since I was moving out anyway, I just learned to sleep curled up in the fetal position...usually. I felt strange getting up, so I asked my mom to measure me...I couldn't measure myself in the doorway anymore, since I didn't fit! She had to stretch, so she stood on some of my books and read off the tape...7'2! 'maybe a little more' she said. I was floored...that day I went crazy thinking, was I just going to keep on growing? I had the doctor's appointment coming up, and I thought about the procedure they said to stop my growth...but I said, no, if I'm supposed to be tall, then that's how I'll be...it helped of course that I wasn't a complete tall freak in my family...but now I was taller than my dad...remembering how big he was to me even that spring, that was crazy! And after that I kinda went nuts, figuring stuff out...at that rate, I figured, I'd be the tallest women in the world within a month or two! And the tallest person ever by the end of the year! And 10 feet tall by spring break! lol silly I know...but it wasn't to be...I kept measuring every day, but I was stuck at 7'2...or 86 inches...and thats how I got my screenname lol (well, okay, I grew another half inch by Christmas.) But it was a pretty amazing summer...in addition to growing 2 feet taller (2 feet!) and like 15 shoe sizes, I'd gained 115 pounds! Which really freaked me out, except that I still looked skinny....even almost 200 pounds isn't a lot on 7'2 of frame.

So this is getting really long lol...so I went to college, which is tough for anyone, but having my height made it easy and harder...not being around my family was the worst, since they actually made me feel normal...and the freshman 15 for me was the freshman 50 lol lol...but it seemed like most of it went to 2 places...well, 3 since 2 of them were you can guess where :) But I wanted to say something about that, this 'growing out of bras' thing, well, I'm not going to go into cup sizes and stuff, but bras are pretty stretchy and most peopel wear the wrong size anyway, and if you're growing even fast you really don't notice it...I was kinda small before my spurt, and I was small but big afterwards (meaning, like everything grew but the same amount):) but I started to fill out at school, and after thanksgiving I had to get a new bra because I only had a white one and needed a black one for a dress my mom made for me for a wedding we were going to..and I tried on a D which is what I'd been wearing, and it didn't come close to fitting...turns out I'd grown another 2 cup sizes and didn't really realize it (oops, guess I did go into cup sizes lol) But anyway, by New Years I was pretty much the size I am now...I've got pictures from the party, I'll try to scan them in.

Oh, if you're wondering where I'm going to school it's a little place no one's probably ever heard of...but they have a good biology program, which is what I'm studying...and you might start hearing about them, because of their new 7'2 center lol...yeah, I'm going to try out for basketball...I think after a year I've finally got an idea about how this big body works, and my dad's helping me out this summer...I'm still not very good, but since I can finally dunk maybe I've got a chance (it sounds easy if you can reach the rim from your tip-toes, but it's still pretty hard!) My dad says i'm doing okay, but I joke that he doesn't have to try to play with two basketballs on his chest lol...(ok, they're not that big, but they feel like it sometimes). Thank heavens for extra-big sports bras lol. But it's good exercise, (not all the 50 lbs I gained before Christmas and the..um...some amount I gained after went to the 'right places' lol) and I figure I'll give it a shot...maybe you'll hear about me...'Super tall girl still sucks at b-ball' :):)

it's silly...but this summer when it started I kinda was hoping i'd have another growth spurt, you know, if it was a 'summer thing'...i still wouldn't mind being the tallest girl in the world lol...but it was pretty quiet, until this week, I finally felt like my old sneakers were too small...and I've started wearing my dad's...size 21...mens! They're big, but I'm hoping I'll grow into them...since I measured myself last week...and I hit 7'3! Now, it's probably just that I grew another 1/2 inch since New Years...since I haven't been measuring regularly anymore... my mom said she grew a couple inches after her big spurt, so maybe I'll hit 7'5 someday...which would be awesome, since I'd love to be taller than Josh, that'd blow his mind lol lol....but another big growth spurt would be cool...I mean, once you're over 7', everything has to be made for you, you're already ducking under doors, what's another couple inches? Yeah, there are health concerns and stuff...but it's still cool to think about...the one to watch is my sis...she's only 12 and she just hit 6'4...doctors say she'll hit 6'8 or so, so she'll be a member of the 'duck for doors' club too :):) they say she's an early bloomer like my dad and bro...but I can't help wonder what if she takes after my mom and me too and is a 'double bloomer...' then she might have to worry about more than ducking for doors...she might have to worry about 8 foot ceilings too lol lol :)

So there you have it...i have a great old place I'm staying next year at school...13' ceilings! I can actually do jumping jacks lol :) It's weird being so tall, but it's probably easier for me since I was short at first, I never got teased about it as a kid...Sus does sometimes, but she usually beats up someone who does lol...I'd love to meet someone as tall as me, but here in BF-egypt that's not likely :) And if I keep growing, it's probably not likely at all! But I'll hope...and hey, I guess short guys aren't so bad, since that's about all that's left for me :):) So I tell you later about all the other stuff about being tall, like how dusty the tops of door moldings and refridgerators are lol...and for you doubters I'll try to send pics now that I've got my own PC. This turned out a lot longer than I thought it would, but then again, so did I lol....

best wishes, Kate :)

-------- Unfortunately, as you might have guessed, 'Kate' is just a figment of my imagination, and this story isn't real. It shows that you can't always trust what you see on the internet, but I think everyone already knows that...but we want to believe. What I want to know is, is the story better if you think there's a chance it could be true, or it better knowing from the start, with no dishonesty? Of course, stories that *are* true are the best, but what's better, ones that could be unlikely as they are, or ones that you know are fiction and can enjoy on that level? I'd like to hear about it. Sorry for the deception, such as it was!