“Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it” – WW Jacobs
The human race has been plagued from time immemorial by different diseases, which have wreaked havoc on people's life. Sometimes these afflictions have affected the body of a person and sometimes also their mind. Quite often a person suffering from an ailment does not only feel the problems, because of the physical manifestations of the disease, that he/she is suffering from but also because they are made to feel a certain way by the people around them.
Our story here is also about such a person, who faced problems in the initial part of his life because he was short in height & later on because of his tall stature. The main reason for this was that his pituitary gland (which produces growth hormone & controls growth of a person), which wasn’t producing the hormones adequately, suddenly went on overdrive as he approached his mid-20s.
Adam Rainer, who later came to be known as - a dwarf and giant in the same lifetime, was born in Graz, Austria in 1899. Neither his parents nor any other members in his family had any medical disorder, which can be held responsible, for his fate, which would later make him famous. Adam Rainer had the dubious distinction as being the only person in the world, to have been both a dwarf and a giant in his lifetime. The parents, who were of normal height, would have never imagined, about the strange turn of events, that would later engulf their son's life.
There was no physical abnormality noted in Adam's life when he was a child. However, as he approached adulthood, he was observed to be much shorter than people in his peer group. Being of 138 cm at the age of 18 years, he couldn't be exactly be described as of regular height. In spite of his physical deficiency, an enthusiastic Adam tried to join the army to serve his nation during world war I.
However, the doctors who examined him at the time of enlistment with the army, after a thorough examination decided that Adam was too small & weak to be a soldier. The examining doctors had no hesitation in labeling him as a dwarf, as any adult measuring less than 147 cm is indeed classified as a dwarf, according to medical terminology. The fact that his hand and feet were exceptionally large for his body size, may have given him, very little if at all any satisfaction.
He grew another couple of inches (5 cm) in a year but still did not fulfill the criteria set to join the armed services. The fact that his shoe size had also increased (from US shoe size 10, at 19 years of age to 20, three years later) without a remarkable increase in height, was not exactly the advantage that he wanted.
We do not know what were the thoughts that may have been crossing the mind of Adam Rainer, but human logic dictates that he must have been wishing that only if he was a bit taller. It was at this point of life, god decided to smile on him, or that was what it appeared at the time. By the age of 21 years, most of the people cease to grow, but Adam Rainer experienced an unexpected growth spurt even later in life. His height began to increase radically even after his 26th birthday. By the time of his 32nd birthday, he was almost 218 cm tall, thus becoming dwarf and giant in one lifetime.
This unexpected and abnormal growth spurt did not go unnoticed by the medical fraternity & he caught the eyes of a few doctors. Dr. A Mandle and F Windholz were two such individuals who examined Adam Rainer in the 1930s. It was them, who diagnosed that Adam may have been suffering from tumors of the pituitary gland, which controls growth hormonal activity. A tumor in this site can cause the rare disorder of Acromegaly, which was believed to be the condition, responsible for Adam Rainer's outward physical manifestations, caused due to the production of too much growth hormone.
The medical suspicions were also substantiated by physical evidence. Enlarged hands & feet and face deformities like protruding forehead and jaw, are the hallmark of Acromegaly. Unfortunately, other symptoms like - widely spaced teeth, thick lips and increased curvature of the spine (due to growth spurt) was increasing his difficulties. Finally, Adam had to undergo surgery, where the doctors were successful in removing the tumor. A subsequent examination a few months later showed that although Adam's growth had certainly slowed down, it hadn't stopped totally.
The spinal curvature continued to get worse with time and he started facing difficulty while walking. As his appetite decreased and his overall health continued to deteriorate, gradually Adam Rainer became confined to bed. The abnormal growth also affected his facial bones as he went blind in his right eye and also began to lose his hearing in his left ear. The only person in history to be dwarf and a giant finally died in 1950 at the age of 51 years. His height of 234 cm (7 ft 8 inches) at the time of his death, would have made hardly any person believe, that this person may have faced discrimination at a certain point of his life for being a dwarf.