Claire Kerr, 43, shares her true life story
I grabbed my car keys and checked my watch.
“Come on, love, we’re going to be late,” I called to my daughter Kacie, 10.
As she wandered down the stairs ready for school, I did a double take.
The buttons on her shirt were straining against her chest – her boobs had definitely grown again.
She’d started her period just a few weeks before and it seemed overnight she’d shot up from an A-cup to a B.
I’d mentioned it to the school nurse but she’d just said it was puppy fat.
It seemed odd to me, though, because the rest of her body was tiny.
A week later, I decided to take Kacie to the doctor to voice my concerns.
He said it was quite common for girls with Kacie’s condition to go through early puberty.
“I think it’s more than puberty,” I fretted to my fiancé, Peter.
A month later, Peter and I got married.
Kacie was our bridesmaid and looked so pretty with her hair in a long plait.
But as I helped her into her pale blue gown, I couldn’t help but notice one of her breasts was bigger than the other.
They thought it was just puberty.
(Image: Supplied)And just a few weeks after the wedding, the size difference between them was huge – one was a B-cup and the other a D.
She’d grown out of the first lot of bras I’d bought for her so I took her to a store to get fitted.
“Oh my goodness!” the sales assistant gasped, as she wrapped the measuring tape around her.
“I’m afraid we don’t have anything suitable here”.
There simply weren’t any shops that stocked bras for such lopsided chests.
I had to go online and get some made-to-order.
They were incredibly expensive.
As the weeks passed, her chest continued to swell and she was in constant pain as the skin stretched.
She had countless hospital appointments for ultrasounds and blood tests, but everything came back negative.
Soon, poor Kacie couldn’t walk without being hunched over.
She couldn’t run around like other kids her age, instead she had to lie on the couch in front of the TV.
By now Kacie had huge J-cup breasts, having gone up nine bra sizes in four months.
One day, she woke up screaming.
To my horror, it seemed the skin under her boobs had started to tear.
I took her back to the GP that very day.
But he just sent her away with soothing cream and painkillers – I wanted to scream.
Kacie’s breasts had started to tear.
(Image: Supplied)In the end, I had to get a specialist to refer to us another GP who finally took us seriously.
Kacie was sent to hospital for pain management – morphine and hormone injections.
“The hormones will make the problem worse initially,” the doctor warned me.
And they did. One afternoon a nurse came to check on Kacie and gasped.
“They’ve grown in the last couple of hours! She cried.
A blood test revealed her calcium levels were too high.
“We need to get them down right now,” a doctor said anxiously. “It could be fatal if the calcium solidifies and causes organ failure.”
Suddenly, Kacie started vomiting luminous green liquid.
“Oh my God,” I screamed. “Please do something!”
“I just want her to get better”.
(Image: Supplied)She was rushed to a dependency unit where doctors battled to save her life.
It broke my heart seeing my poor little girl lying in bed all covered in tubes.
Many doctors came in to see her.
They seemed to be gawking, unable to believe how big her boobs were.
She’s not a freak show, I thought angrily.
Finally, five days later, she was put on a drug to slow down her breast growth.
We were by her side for hours until she woke up after the surgery.
(Image: Supplied)After that, a doctor took me and Peter into a private room.
“I’m afraid there’s only one way we can cure Kacie’s condition… and it’s quite drastic,” he said slowly.
“Go on,” I urged, feeling anxious. “I just want her to get better.”
To listen to the rest of Kacie’s story, listen to episode 18 of Take 5’s Ripper Real Life podcast!
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