What’s it like to be Sandy Allen? Sandy, at her tallest, stood 7' 7-1/4" tall.
Imagine a world several sizes too small. Terror lurks in the bathroom. She once got her 400-pound frame stuck in a tub for several hours. "Showerheads," she says, "hit me in the bellybutton." Try washing dishes when the sink only comes up to your thigh. Try finding a pair of panty hose that fit. If anyone could complain, "I haven't a thing to wear," it was she. Allen suffers from "acromegaly," commonly known as "giant's disease." She was a normal 6-pounds, 5-onces at birth. But a tumor in the pituitary gland triggered unusual growth. By the sixth grade, she was 6 1/2 feet tall, and towered over her teacher.
Allen's whole life has been a fight. From being an outcast in Shelbyville, Ind., to working in what she called a "glorified freak show" in Niagara Falls, it's been a battle for respect. Her favorite memories are doing assembly programs for elementary school children, teaching the simple lesson, "It's OK to be different." "I felt so much like an outcast, a space alien, someone who didn't belong,"..."I feel I have a duty to help others who stare up to the sky and say, 'Why me, lord?'"
Growing up, Sandy Allen just wanted to be like other girls, but...
"We had a graduation party at a skating ring and I was the only kid who couldn't participate," she said. "My feet were too big to rent skates."... Allen couldn't get behind the wheel of a car when it came time to take driver's ed. No boy would dance with her. "They called me a beanpole, a monster, a freak. And that's what they said to my face," she said. "I could only imagine what they said behind my back."
How has Allen learned to deal with the meanness and cruelty of others?
Some people turn the other cheek. Not Sandy Allen. "I try not to have anger. But I give it to them back when I need to," she says. "I've learned to pity mean people." "You can laugh off some of those jokes. But how many times do you want to hear 'How's the weather up there?' Especially, if they are being mean about it. Sometimes you want to spit on those people and say, 'It's raining.'"
Then, at the other extreme are those who’ve treated her as a celebrity. Deciding to capitalize on her disability-turned-asset, for a time she became a guest on talk shows, travelled, and even made an appearance in a movie.
Most of the time people were nice, and I got to travel the world...I was definitely proud of what I did and to be a part of a critically acclaimed filmmaker's work...When it played in Shelbyville, I was the toast of the town.
But difficulties persist. These days she is confined to a wheelchair due to health problems related to her condition.
"I've really struggled with depression, especially recently," she says. "The trick is to get yourself to realize that you can be compassionate and that you can find compassionate people. The idiots and the mean people, you can just ignore."
Quotes are from an ABCNews story from Dec. 31, 2002 titled "New Year's Resolutions From the World's Tallest Woman," by Buck Wolf.
John Kleinman has written Sandy Allen's authorized biography, Cast a Giant Shadow.
