Most little girls ask for ponies and dolls on their birthdays, but when Madeline Luk turned five, she longed for something much bigger.
“She asked when she would be taller,” reveals her mum Nicole, 35. “It broke my heart.”
Both Maddy, now six, and her sister Briella, three, have diastrophic dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism that means they will only ever grow to about 90cm tall.
“We didn’t know anyone with dwarfism before having Maddy,” tells Nicole. “It was a huge shock when she came along and we discovered she had the condition.”
In fact, Sydney residents Nicole and husband Bernard – both of average height – already had one healthy and growing daughter, Lana, now eight, when Maddy arrived.
“The fact Lana was fine added to our surprise,”…
