Astounding Medical Mysteries
Brenden is 7'3" at just 12 years old.
Of the 6.7 billion people on earth, Brenden stands alone. Known as the boy who can't stop growing, doctors say he is a one-of-a-kind medical mystery that they've spent years trying to solve.

Brenden is just 12 years old and already stands at 7'3" tall. He is a full 2 feet taller than the average kid in his seventh-grade class—but he doesn't want to be treated any differently. "I wish people would see that I'm just a normal person and that I hang out with my friends just like anybody else," Brenden says.

Living in an average-size world becomes more complicated at Brenden's level. His home had to be custom designed to fit Brenden's tall stature, including 8-foot-tall door frames and a bed that is 2.5 feet longer than a regular bed. Although he's constantly ducking wherever he goes, Brenden says he accepts his life the way it is. "I love the way I am," he says. "I couldn't see myself any different."
Dr. Oz holds a replica of Brenden's femur bone, while Oprah holds a normal-sized femur.
Brenden's mother, Debbie, says he was born at a normal weight: 7 pounds, 3 ounces and 19.5 inches long. Around the age of 4 months, Brenden's father, Willie, says they began noticing that Brenden was developing faster than other babies. "He had teeth, and his joints started showing a little bit more growth than other kids his size," he says.

"By the time Brenden was in kindergarten, he was the size of the fifth-grade students in school," Debbie says. At 7 years old, Brenden was already 5'4"—and doctors had no idea why.

Dr. Oz brings out a skeleton to compare the size of an average femur bone with the size of Brenden's femur. Besides his bones being much larger, Brenden has other visible signs of growth. "As you can see, Brenden's eyelids are so overgrown they cover half his eyes," Dr. Oz says. "He also had 12 extra teeth, which made his jaw larger."

After eight long years and test after test, doctors finally made a breakthrough. "A bone marrow test revealed that Brenden's excessive growth started in utero when one of his chromosomes broke off, flipped around and reattached," Dr. Oz says. "They say the odds of this happening are billions to one."

Finally, doctors were able to find a solution to Brenden's never-ending growth. "They induced your body into puberty by giving you testosterone," Dr. Oz says. "It was a very smart idea by them." It's worked so far—Brenden says he hasn't grown in the past six months. "You're not just a miracle because of your spirit—you're a miracle because you're alive," Dr. Oz says. "It's similar to flying a plane and the wing breaking off and then reconnecting upside down and you're still being able to stay on flight."
NBA star Shaquille O'Neal is Brenden's new friend.
Trying to be an average kid in a body much larger than most adults isn't easy—and one of Brenden's biggest challenges is finding clothes that fit. "I don't have very many things because it's hard to find things," he says. "I have to have them custom-made because they don't fit."

Someone who can relate is basketball giant Shaquille O'Neal, who Brenden says is one of his heroes. "That's because I can look at him at eye level," Brenden jokes. After hearing Brenden's story, Shaq sent a gigantic gift for Brenden—a pair of his massive basketball shoes!

Along with the shoes, Shaq joins via satellite to tell Brenden about a few more surprises, starting with a flight to Phoenix for a Suns basketball game and hang time. "We'll ride around, ride in the car, go shopping, go to the mall. We'll just have fun because I'm 12 years old also," he jokes.

As someone who understands the challenges of being tall, Shaq wants to give Brenden another gift. "I have a tailor, and he's going to make you a lot of outfits, and I have a lot of stuff that I'm going to send to you," Shaq says. "You can now consider me your best friend. I've gotcha, baby."

When Shaq was Brenden's age, he says his height came with shyness. "But once I got to the age of 16 and 17 years old, I just said to myself, 'Be sexy. Shoulders up. Head high.' So that's my advice to you, Brenden. Just be tall. Be beautiful."
Kristin, just 3'3", has primordial dwarfism.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Brenden, Kristin sees the world in a different perspective. She is 26 years old but stands just 3'3" tall —the height of an average 4- or 5-year-old. While Kristin says she may be short in stature, she's tall in spirit.

Kristin was born full-term weighing just 2 pounds, 11 ounces and 15 inches long—75 percent smaller than the average baby. Doctors suspected Kristin had a rare form of dwarfism, but most dwarfs have normal-size torsos and heads with shorter limbs and bowed legs. In Kristin's case, everything was proportionate—just very tiny.

When she was 8 years old and just 2'9" tall, doctors finally diagnosed Kristin with primordial dwarfism—a disorder she shares with only 100 people in the world.
With a few modification to her car, Kristin can drive.
Although Kristin may be small, her parents, Mike and Cinda, say she can do anything she sets her mind to. With a few modifications made to the wheel and peddles of her car, Kristin can even drive. "Why shouldn't we be able to?" she says. "I mean, we're like everybody else."

Simple tasks, like doing the laundry, can become a big job for a little person. "A lot of people don't really think about laundry, but for other people, it can be hard and challenging," Kristin says. "The world is made for big people, not for short-stature people. So we just want people to understand our situation."

Just like other 26-year-olds, Kristin loves to shop. "I get clothes from all over," she says. "We have to look around, but they're there." Kristin says buying clothes in children's sizes doesn't bother her. "As long as they look grown up," she says.

Kristin may be a medical miracle, but she says she doesn't want to be treated differently. "I do have hopes and dreams for myself, just like everybody else," she says. "I mean, everybody has feelings. Everybody has problems. I'm like everybody else."

Keep Reading
Dr. Oz show's Kristin a replica of her small femur, while Oprah holds a relica of Brenden's large femur.
Of the 100 primordial dwarfs on earth, Kristin is the oldest at the age of 26. For years, she had her doctors stumped on her condition—and now they're learning from her.

Although Kristin's brain is just a fraction of the size of an average brain, she is no less intelligent. "How is that possible?" Dr. Oz says. "It challenges all of our thinking about how we work. How can you get 100 billion neurons into your brain just like a larger brain? That's the subtlety of the human body. That's why we learn so much."

Dr. Oz brings out a replica of Kristin and Brenden's femur bones along with an average-size femur bone. "So if you compare them, there's huge differences," Dr. Oz says. "The fact that all three of these could exist together is, to me, a miracle in itself."

"That's the miracle of life," Oprah says. "How we're all alike but different."
Oprah tests Jill Price's amazing memory.
What did you do last Tuesday night? How about last month? Last year? Five years ago? Jill Price says she can remember every single thing that has happened to her since age 14. If you give Jill a date, within seconds she can tell you everything about that day in amazing detail.

Oprah tests her with a few days chosen at random.

December 8, 1980: "John Lennon killed," Jill says. "I was in the 10th grade. It was a Monday, and I was actually doing my homework when I heard Howard Cosell announce it on the radio or on the TV. So my actual first thought of it was that somebody had come into his house and killed him there. I didn't know he was downstairs. I have the memory, but then I have the added my life around it too."

June 17, 1994: "The O.J. Simpson Bronco chase. Friday," she says. "And the basketball game was going on also—one of the Finals games."

Jill says her first memory is from when she was 18 months old—when her uncle's dog came into her room and woke her up. She remembers specific events from the early years of her life, but at age 14, Jill says something "snapped."

"It's not that anything happened on February 5, 1980, but that's the day. Everything after that is just very vivid," she says. "Prior to that, I could tell you a million things, but it's every single day since that day."
Jill recounts the first time she realized her powerful memory.
Jill says the first time she realized that her memory was better than most people's was when she was 12.

"I was sitting and studying for a science final, and my mom was reading my science work. I started thinking about the year before, when I was in sixth grade, and how great sixth grade was—because I was now at the end of seventh grade and doing finals and I was under a lot of stress," she says. "I was thinking about the year before and how I was on a field trip on this day and I was doing this on this day and then it dawned on me: Oh my God, I just remembered a year ago today."

Jill says she even asked around to see if other people had similar experiences. "Two months later, I was with a friend of mine on the beach and I said, 'Do you realize a year ago today we did the same exact thing?' And she looked at me and said no," Jill says. "That was the first time I ever said anything to anybody about it—on July 1."
Jill keeps journals of her days, but can remember everything without looking at them.
Since the age of 15, Jill has been keeping a daily journal. This isn't to help her remember, she says, but to make a tangible record of what happened. "I write and then I put it away and I don't really ever have to look at it again," she says.

Despite her memorable memory, Jill says it didn't really help her in school. "Absolutely not. It was tormenting to me because I don't memorize, I just know it," she says. "I had a terrible time in school memorizing plays or memorizing poems. Unless I was interested in a class, it didn't catch me."

One thing that did catch Jill's attention is television. She says she remembers every episode of classic shows like All in the Family...and Jill says she even has memories about The Oprah Winfrey Show. "Like your first week. I was ironing and your show was on gossipers, office gossipers," she says. "And there was one guy who stood up and you just gave him a what-for."
Dr. Oz explains how the brain creates memory.
Dr. Oz says Jill's condition is particularly interesting to researchers because of how her memories are intertwined with emotions...and come with an instant recall of the emotions she felt at the time.

While others have since been diagnosed with the condition called hypothyemezia, Dr. Oz says Jill was the first. "I have my own syndrome," she says.

How do we store memories? Dr. Oz says it starts in the amygdala, part of the reptilian brain—the oldest part of the human brain, a remnant of our evolutionary history. "Reptiles are just responsive; they're instinctual beings. Humans, theoretically—not all of us do it all the time—we're supposed to use the outer part of the brain to temper what we do."

Because of the structure of the amygdala, this part of the brain has us constantly in a natural state of anxiety. "The amygdala is the brain's fire alarm. It's just shooting out messages all the time: 'Hey, watch out! Look left! Look right! Not good! Don't trust! Evil! Good!' All of those messages are being shot up to your head."

Then, the middle parts of the reptilian brain integrate that initial reaction to attempt to make sense of what you just figured out through sensation—creating a memory. "If there's something bad happening, you want to remember it so you don't get in that situation again," Dr. Oz says.
Dr. Oz explains how Jill's brain is different.
Dr. Oz says Jill's brain creates memories in a way that is different from how most people learn. Instead of learning through repetition, her memory is emotional memory. While that might make Jill a great eyewitness, it can make life torturous too. When recalling every hurt feeling, embarrassment, disappointment, slight, insult and rude comment, she not only remembers the moment of the insult, she viscerally remembers how she felt then too.

"I want to be able to survive in society and have my friends and live a normal life, which I do," she says. "But I walk around with an open chest, raw all the time, and I have to act accordingly."
Dr. Oz says Jill could help scientists learn how the brain works.
Dr. Oz says there is a lot we can learn from Jill's impressive brain. While we know how the brain reads shapes and colors, there is still a lot we don't know. "Amazingly, we don't actually understand how we remember," he says. "For example, you know what your grandmother looked like, right? How? Is there one cell in the back of the brain somewhere that just knows who grandma is?"

"But the real question in my mind—I wonder if all of us have memories we can't access or if you're able to store more memories than any of us can," Dr. Oz tells Jill. "I've never met anyone like you or heard of anyone like you."

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