When she had her periods for the first time, Shreya did not panic. She just cried.
Shreya is no ordinary child. She, as her mother Shivani Dhillon, would put it, is the one with the “extra chromosome”; a “neuro-typical” human has 46 chromosomes but she, a “neuro-divergent” girl, has 47. Shreya has Down Syndrome.
Shivani, a therapeutic storyteller, had been telling Shreya about periods, counselling her on its imminence long before she had hit puberty. “Otherwise when they get periods, it’s like falling off a cliff. In this free fall, the parents will never know what to do. They try many things in desperation and their child would not know what’s happening,” Shivani said.
