Porter 1

Heather Porter

Professor Moore

English 1302

6 May 2017

Diagnostic/Reader Response 1

Little Person, BIG job.

Jen Arnold MD may not look like much but she has a big responsibility. Graduating from

Johns Hopkins University School Of Medicine in 2000, Arnold is a neonatologist and works at

the Texas Childrens Hospital in Houston, Texas. She has seventeen years of experience and her

specialties revolve around Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine and Pediatrics. Arnold who was

diagnosed with spondyloepiphysea dysplasia, a form of skeletal dysplasia, or dwarfism, that

results in many joint and orthopedic complications, does not let that stop her (Grauer).

Arnolds job at Texas Childrens is well known; due in part to her Television show on

TLC following her and her husband as little people living seemingly normal lives. Despite her

short stature Arnold gets the job done! All of her jobs, her job as a Doctor of course but she is

also a wife and a mother. Her and her husband also have opened an animal rescue. Always going
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above and beyond to help others. To be able to do the type of job Arnold has and raise a family

of two adopted children, she must have a lot of heart. While performing her duties as a Doctor in

a world built for someone twice her size she was diagnosed with a stage 3 choriocarcinoma, a

rare cancer that occurred after she had a failed pregnancy. After surgery to remove a mass in her

uterus, she developed pneumonia. During all of this she remained on her show to document the

whole ordeal.

I believe Jen Arnold MD to be a courageous woman, and that despite much suffering and

heartache she remains in the public eye. She boasts a full size personality on a half size frame

and continues to be a beacon of hope for anyone who may think they live in a world not built for

them. Whether a person needs a step stool, a Seeing Eye companion or a set of wheels to become

more mobile, Arnold shows that with a little adjustment that anybody can thrive.
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Work Cited

Grauer, Neil A. Archives - Big Reach. Johns Hopkins Medicine, based in Baltimore,

Maryland,

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/publications/hopkins_medicine_magazine/archives/winter_201

3/big_reach. Accessed. 21, January 2017.