Tuff Stuff
Turns out that the reason Gary Coleman had a short stature was because he received certain drugs when he was a kid to combat short stature a genetic birth defect, as he was born with one atrophied kidney and the other was failing. At the age of five, he received his first kidney transplant, and then another in 1984. When it looked like he needed another transportation just two years later, he instead chose dialysis. By age 14, Coleman knew he would not get taller than four feet eight inches. There was even an episode in the show where his character suffered from the same problem and had to come to terms with it.
Tuff Stuff
All Grown Up
When Coleman neared adulthood, he felt quite tired of playing an adolescent onscreen. Therefore he asked, more like petitioned, the writers to age Arnold and put him in high school so he could deal with more grown up things such as dating and driving.
All Grown Up
