Some people get treated differently because nobody knows their story, like Krystal Ciccarelli, a senior at GS who continues to defy the odds every day.
   Krystal has been a “little person” for her entire life. It’s hereditary and she is not the only one in her family with this condition.
   “My mom, her dad and her brother are little people,” Krystal said. “I had three cousins who were also little people, but one of them died.”
   Krystal has also suffered from spinal stenosis, which is the narrowing of the spinal column that produces a lot of pressure on the spinal cord. She has been suffering from this for the past three years, but doctors just recently discovered how to fix it.
   “[The doctors] removed one of my ribs and put it in my back,” she said. “I got the operation done at Children’s Hospital and stayed for a week. Then I was sent to Mercy for two months to recover.”
   Recently, Krystal returned to GS following her surgery and a successful recovery.
   “It went better than I thought,” she said. “I couldn’t move at first, but now I am moving like I was before [the surgery].”
   It was easy for Krystal to realize that she would be little her entire life.
   “I always thought I’d be like this and I’m okay with it,” she said. “I don’t want to be big.”
   Krystal has found alternatives to doing things in her life to overcome the fact that she’s little.
   “I am small, but I can do most stuff in a different way,” she said. “Everybody isn’t the same and can do things differently.”
   Although she has no problem with being little, other people have treated her and her family differently for being who they are.
   “I wish to be viewed like everybody else,” she said. “But it’s been tough for my brother.”
  Eugene Ciccarelli is currently in 10th grade and he faces problems with bullying because of his size.
   “People always say things because I’m small,” Eugene said. “But I’ve just had to learn to deal with it.”
   Eugene is very proud of who his sister is and knows she’s strong enough to take on anything she faces.
   “[Teachers] say my sister is strong,” he said.
     With everything Krystal has gone through, she knows that things don’t always work out the first time.
   “I just take things one minute at a time,” she said. “If it’s not right, I will fix it.”
   Krystal’s favorite thing to do is art and she wants to pursue a career in what she loves to do.
   “I want to be an art or special education teacher,” she said. “My issues might get in the way, but I will figure something out.”