Thsarubla Sangtam, known as Nagaland's tallest girl, dies at 27

C Thsarubla Sangtam, who was widely known as Nagaland's tallest girl, has died at her home in Mokokchung. She was 27 and stood 6 feet 10 inches tall.

She passed away on October 31, less than a month after her 27th birthday on October 5, Eastern Mirror reported. Her funeral service was held in Mokokchung on Sunday, November 1. She is survived by her parents, J Chokhase Sangtam and Rebecca Sangtam, and her sister.

A rare condition

Thsarubla was born in 1999, and her family moved to Mokokchung when she was a month old. She had acromegaly, a rare disorder in which the body makes too much growth hormone, usually because of a tumour in the pituitary gland. Her condition was found in 2009 after an MRI scan at Zion Hospital and Research Centre in Dimapur, and she began growing unusually fast after the age of 10.

Acromegaly is a long-term illness. Besides abnormal growth, it can cause headaches, joint pain, and heart and breathing problems, and it needs ongoing specialist treatment.

A life of everyday struggles

Eastern Mirror, which first wrote about her in 2018, reported that constant headaches, joint pain and other complications forced her to stop studying after Class 10. She had hoped to become a veterinary doctor. She spent much of her life at home.

Her height made ordinary things hard. Clothes and shoes did not fit, and her six-foot bed was too short, so she slept diagonally across it. Her father had special footwear made by a cobbler in Dimapur, and her mother stitched her clothes. In her earlier interview with the paper, she said she wished to live a normal life and felt uncomfortable going out because people stared at her.

Support from local volunteers

The Care and Support Society in Mokokchung helped her obtain official certification as a person with disabilities.

Disability certification in India allows a person to apply for benefits such as disability pensions, concessions and assistive support under state and central schemes. For people with rare conditions like acromegaly, diagnosis and specialist hormone or surgical care are usually available only in larger hospitals, which can mean long journeys for families in smaller towns.