PARTY ANIMAL The Little Couple’s Jen Arnold shares rare throwback photo from college days – and she’s holding a giant snake
THE LITTLE Couple’s Jen Arnold shared a rare throwback photo of her college days where she’s holding a giant snake.
The reality TV star attended the University of Miami back in the 90’s.
Jen, 46, shared a fun throwback photo on Saturday as she reminisced about her days in college.
In the photo, seven people – not including Jen – are holding on to a large snake as they smile for the camera.
Jen can also be spotted in the picture, wearing a navy jacket, a white tee-shirt and jeans complete with her staple pair of glasses.
Along with the picture, she wrote: “Throwback to my college days… I made so many good friends and had such a blast during my time @universityofmiami_hurricanes.”
The mother of two has previously opened up about her life as a student and revealed in her autobiography that her school friends in Florida were kind but that she was often in and out of school due to surgeries, which left her feeling lonely.
She wrote: “I would be out of school for two to three weeks for the surgery, then up to three months to heal in the cast at home, and then six to eight more weeks for inpatient physical therapy at the hospital.”
Jen had undergone 22 surgeries by the time she was 18; she has now had over 30.
The young mom always knew she wanted to be a doctor, but her stature did pose a problem, particularly at the University of Miami, where she claimed she was “grilled” about her disability and that “the interview quickly became focused on my size, or lack thereof.”
However, Jen was accepted into The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the best in the country, where she thrived.
Jen and Bill Klein met in 2006 after finding each other online, and they dated for two years before Bill dropped down to one knee and proposed.
They married in 2008 in a fairytale wedding ceremony, and a year later, they began filming for their TLC docu-series The Little Couple.
In 2013, however, Jen and Bill were hit with the best and worst news possible as they were approved to adopt two children but Jen was diagnosed with stage three choriocarcinoma, a rare form of cancer that occurred after she had a miscarriage.
The pair adopted son Will – now 10 – in 2013 from China, after they met him at an orphanage.
“It was instant, our connection. My relationship with Will is something I didn’t expect,” Jen said at the time.
Months later, they adopted eight-year-old Zoe from India; Will and Zoe both also have a form of dwarfism.
But that same year, Jen was confirmed to have cancer, which began in the cells that would have become the placenta for the baby she tragically lost.
Dr. Concepcion R. Diaz-Arrastia said at the time that it was “a very rare cancer, rare that it was found in a little person … a very rare situation.”
Treatment for the disease was difficult due to her skeletal dysplasia and her difficulties with past surgeries.
Jen faced weekly intensive treatments of chemotherapy between the end of 2013 and 2014, all while taking care of her newly adopted children Zoe and Will.
She said: “It actually got harder as more time went on. Some weeks were more difficult than others with different side effects.
“I had a lot of fatigue and nausea and some days it just felt like my hands and feet were very heavy.”
The road to recovery was a long, intensive journey and after she went into remission in 2014, she remained closely monitored by her doctor, as 85 percent of recurrences happen in the first 18 months after chemo.
Six years on, Jen remains healthy and cancer-free.
To celebrate their love for each other, in 2014, Bill proposed to Jen a second time, and they had a big celebration honoring their love later that year.
Now, Jen, 46, and 45-year-old Bill are living their dream, having recently moved back to Florida from Houston, Texas to be close to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital where Jen is now working.
