Chapter 1

It was the third day of what was now my 12-9 shift at work. That was one thing I hadn’t quite considered when I moved to North Carolina four months ago: that I would still be working remotely with a team of newbies and need to be available to answer their questions while doing my own work. The part I hadn’t considered was the “spring forward” time change. Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings time. Since their work day didn’t end until 6:00, I needed to be at work until 9:00 to be available to them.

I collapsed into the recliner in my living room, wanting to just sit there and not move for the rest of the night.

That plan went up in smoke when I got a text from Leanna: “Just checking in. How are things going this week?”

Leanna would be a personal trainer to the stars if she lived in Los Angeles. She’s a triathlete who has done the Ironman multiple times – even coming in second overall a couple of years ago – not to mention being a swim coach, fitness instructor, and a wellness coach who, at age 47, still thinks a 5-mile run at dawn is the ideal way to start the day.

Fortunately for me, she was a student who didn’t want to live on campus when we both attended the University of Colorado. She and I were roommates – with two other people – for about a year and a half.

We reconnected through social media a few years ago, when her personal-training business was starting to take off. Partly as a favor to me, and partly so she could honestly advertise experience working with someone with a physical disability, she offered her assistance upon learning that my doctor had told me I was pre-diabetic and needed to lose 30 pounds.

30 pounds is a lot for anyone who is sedentary and goes through a six-pack of soda every 2-3 days. 30 pounds is really a lot when it’s 20% of your body weight and you can’t effectively use two-thirds of what is available in your local gym. So we started small.

First, she wanted me to switch soda for water every day for three weeks. I actually found, a month later, that I didn’t really like the taste of soda anymore.

Second, she asked me to take one lap around my apartment complex every day for three weeks. If I felt like I could do more, great, but I had to do at least one lap every day for three straight weeks. By the end of the third week, I was routinely doing three laps.

Then she asked me to buy a scale and step on it. Whereupon I learned that in six weeks, I had lost 14 pounds – already nearly halfway to the goal my doctor set for me.

She then declared me ready to start making some other changes to my life, mostly just to what and when I was eating. She also invited me to the gym where she worked in Golden for a personal-training session. She agreed to do it for free, with one condition – I had to wear shorts.

For most people, this wouldn’t be an onerous request ... but for someone who had part of their leg amputated at age six, and who is best remembered by elementary-school classmates as “the kid whose leg flew off while playing kickball” it’s a little different. There are probably fewer than 10 pictures of me, anywhere, ever, where I am older than five and wearing shorts.

But I did as she asked. And she spent two hours with me, showing me how to work my abdominal muscles in spite of having a partially-fused spine, how to use free weights in spite of the arthritis in my joints, and how to use several of the weight machines in spite of them being designed for someone a foot taller than I am.

In addition to being an amputee, I am a dwarf. Not as in “hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work I go.” As in, I happen to be quite a bit shorter than most adults. I stand 4’6” tall. I’ve been told that I’m good looking. I have many of my father’s features, and he’s still a handsome guy even after nearly 70 years. But my dad is over six feet tall.

Dwarfism presents itself, on average, in one in every 2500 or so births. There are 100 or more types of dwarfism. I have the second most common, called SED. The most common form is achondroplasia, which is what Peter Dinklage has. By contrast, Warwick Davis, who played Professor Flitwick in a couple of the Harry Potter movies, has SED, as does the actor who played Kramer’s friend Mickey on Seinfeld. But I’m getting rather far afield.

I have my father’s jawline, my grandfather’s eyes, my mother’s mouth, the height of your average sixth grader, and a severe inferiority complex where interpersonal relationships are concerned. While my dwarfism is the root cause of my other physical limitations, the fact of me being a dwarf is, in and of itself, the most apparent one. I get stared at constantly in public. Mostly, I don’t even notice anymore. At least not until I go to the gym, but we’ll get back to that.

No, where the problems really manifest is in the world of interpersonal relationships. I have heard the “you’re a nice guy but...” line more times than I care to remember. It’s even hard for me to go dancing. Some of my male friends tease me about “eye level” on the dance floor, which may be true, but it actually makes me very self-conscious. I was raised to treat a lady as respectfully as I would want a gentleman to treat my sisters, and I don’t feel that I can do that if a woman decides to pull me close while dancing and suddenly realizes where my face has ended up. So I try to keep this artificial distance and it just doesn’t work. I just don’t fit into the world very well ... and the world doesn’t fit me well.