At times I feel as if am caged in with a dozen people surrounding me with their wide eyes and pointing fingers. Sometimes I feel like I am wearing a big neon sign that reads, "Laughing and pointing are welcomed." It is as if people feel entitled to glare at my appearance for the simple fact that I look different. I am not a freak. I am a human being that happens to live with NF.
I am going to jump on the bandwagon here and talk about my dislike towards the ill informed episode that recently aired on Scream Queens. The episode titled, Warts and All depicted a charter, Tyler, that was living with a severe case of Neurofibromatosis type 1. The show, which describes itself as being horror-comedy, described Tyler as a monster that used to be hot before his body was invaded with fibromas.
The show called the benign tumors bubble-like warts. One article even described fibromas as pimple-like tumor. I can assure you that my fibromas are not pimple-like whatsoever! In the first place, pimples develop on the surface of the skin. Secondly, pimples do go away, mostly by popping them. Guess what? My fibromas do not pop and unless surgically removed will not go away. In fact, they get irritated and can bleed if I mess with them too much.
I tried to force myself to watch the episode, but I could not bear it. What I saw was disgusting and far from funny.
How is it possible that a show like Scream Queens, with so many fans, is allowed to make light of a real disease? I find it very offensive that the show had the audacity to claim that Tyler could be cured by using a laser that could potentially remove all the tumors making him hot again. At the end of the episode, Tyler dies after the treatment failed.Which is not surprising as there is no cure to date for NF. The show could not have ended any other way because then the fans of the show would actually believe that with a very expensive laser my mom would no longer have the fibromas that cover a good part of her body.
The show also failed to mention that NF affects everyone differently. In my house alone, NF affected my mother, brother and me in very different ways.I know that the show is not supposed to be educational but pure entertainment. It is unfortunate that the opportunity was not taken to educate their audience on a disease that could very well lead to death. I just hope that the people that saw the show were curious enough to do their own investigation about NF because that way they would realize just how wrong their weekly entertainment was.
I am not a monster.I am not a freak. Sadly, some people think I am. Thankfully, those people are insignificant to me.
