Please Don't Stare at Me
Kenny's mom and dad were so happy to have another baby. They already had one boy at home. Now Robbie would have a brother to play with. Just before they left the hospital, a maternity nurse took Kenny's mom aside and whispered, "Too bad about the bruise on his nose." "It makes no difference to us," Kenny's mom and dad assured her. "We're just grateful it isn't anything that could hurt him in any way." They loved Kenny just the way he was and couldn't wait to take him home.
When I grow
up, I'm going to be a fireman. I'll slide down the
pole and I'll ride in the fire-truck and I'll wear
my fireman's hat. I'll help people so their house
doesn't burn down. I'll spray water from the long
hose and make sure the whole family gets out safely.
They'll all thank me for my help. Maybe then they
won't stare at me and make fun of the way I look.
Time has passed. Kenny is now four. He's a great kid, but some people can't see past his nose. You see, Kenny has a birthmark that makes his nose big and red. Early on, no one seemed to know why his nose was so red. When his parents asked, the doctors said it was a type of birthmark - a port-wine stain that lasers could fix.
I was only a few months old when my doctor started laser treatments. She told Mom and Dad a laser was like a special wand that sent out a beam of light. When the beam hit my nose a bunch of times, the color would get lighter. I was too little to remember much about that. But once I heard my mom tell a friend that after I had a laser treatment, it looked like someone burned my face with a cigarette. She said people would stare at me and then stare at her as though she did it! I don't get those treatments anymore.
A lot of people ask a lot of questions about Kenny's nose. Some people ignore him as though he's not even there. Some pretend he can't hear or understand what they are saying.
Questions take different forms. Sometimes they're
caring:
~ "Oh dear, what happened to his face? Did he
fall? Poor thing."
~ "Well what do you know! An angel kissed his
nose. How sweet!"
~ "Oooh, your nose is so red. Does it hurt?"
But
most of the time people ask questions or make
comments that are unkind:
~ "Honk, honk! Look, it's Bozo the Clown!"
~ "Look at that boy's fat nose! Isn't he
funny-looking?"
~ "What happened? You get knocked around a
little?"
Mom says I should ignore what people say about my nose if it isn't nice. She says if someone asks me a question, I can decide if I want to answer it. She promises that as I get older, I'll be able to tell if someone is really concerned or just being mean. She gave me a sample answer to all questions: "It's a birthmark. Some people have birthmarks on their backs. Some have them on their arms. I have a birthmark on my nose." Mom says most people are just curious, that it's "human nature" for people to notice when others are different. It's okay with me if people notice my nose is different. After all, it is! I just don't like when they make me feel bad.
Believe it or not, many people judge a person's "insides" based on their "outsides," Kenny's parents explain. Some people don't always take the time to really get to know someone before forming an opinion about them. Their impression may be based on something as superficial as hair color, clothing, even the type of bike a kid rides. Kids are funny. Some are quiet. Some are friendly. Some are shy. Kids are different in a lot of ways: the way they act or talk or laugh and the way they look. No two kids ever look exactly the same.
I don't see why people have to make such a big deal about my nose. It's not like I asked to have a big, red nose! Some kids in my class wear glasses but I don't like or not like them because they need help to see well. I've seen kids at the library who were in accidents or were born with certain diseases so now they can't walk. They have to use wheelchairs or wear special leg braces. But I would never whisper to a friend: "Hey, look at that kid in the wheelchair. Doesn't he look weird?" I even know some kids from the hospital where I go who don't have any hair. None at all! I would never walk on the other side of the hallway just so I wouldn't have to look them in the eye.
Kenny's doctor explains the reason for Kenny's red nose is because there's a lot of blood flowing to it. He has Kenny go to the hospital every few months so he can try to prevent the blood from flowing so rapidly to his birthmark. Kenny doesn't like going to the hospital. Operations scare him. Being in the hospital scares him. Being hooked up to all kinds of tubes and wires and needles and monitors scares him. But he goes anyway. He knows it's the only thing he can do to have a nose that someday might look like everybody else's.
I try real hard not to let all the "nose comments" bug me. I figure if my nose was so horrible, my mom and dad and brothers would tell me. I'm lucky they're always around to stick up for me. My brother Robbie almost yelled at someone who was making fun of my nose. And my mom is brave. She doesn't let anyone hurt my feelings if she can help it.
We went to a birthday party once and the girl sitting across from me was covering her eyes with one hand and holding her pizza with the other. The birthday girl asked why she was covering her eyes. "Because I can't look at that boy," she said. "His nose is so ugly!"
Kenny thinks a lot and has developed a few of his own responses to questions about his nose. He decides when and how to use them. Once, he told some kids from school he ate red berries from a tree in his backyard that he wasn't supposed to and that's how his nose got so red. After one operation, someone asked about the black scab on his nose. "Oh that thing", he said, "that's a bee sting on my birthmark." Another time, he told his mom, "I had a dream last night about my nose. I dreamed that both my brothers and every kid in my class had a big, red birthmark on his nose except for me." These help Kenny to cope with all the uncomfortable feelings he has when people make him feel bad about looking different.
When
kids see my nose for the first time, they either:
1. Stare at me
2. Look away from me
3. Whisper about me
4. Feel sorry for me
5. Make fun of me
Sometimes that first look determines everything.
It's like their impression of my nose becomes their
impression of me - without ever talking to me or
getting to know me.
Wouldn't it be awful if that were how people chose their friends? Just because of how they looked? I know it's not always that way. But a lot of times it is. What's so bad about looking different anyway?
Kenny's mom and dad talk with him all the time about how he feels about his nose. He tells them things that happen in school or on the playground and his fears about how kids that he's never met might react to his nose. "Anticipating how someone might feel about you just because of how you look is tough. That's why you have to make more of an effort to let people know who you really are. Allow them to see all the special parts of your personality. Tell them how it makes you feel when they are mean to you. Ask them to tell you how they would feel if they were in your shoes. "Being different makes each one of us special in our own way," Kenny's mom encourages him.
"You mean
it's okay to be different, I mean look different?" I
ask. I always thought that people stared at me and
whispered about me and made fun of me because it
wasn't okay to look different. I don't know if my
nose will ever be small or the same color as every
one else I know. To tell the truth, I don't even
know if I want my nose to be like everyone else's.
What I really want is to learn to be happy being
just who I am. My mom says there are wonderful life
lessons to be learned just because of my nose.
When I grow up, I still want to be a fireman. I still want to slide down the pole and ride in the fire truck and wear my fireman's hat. And I still want to help people. But not just so they won't stare at me or make fun of the way I look - just because that's what I really want to do.
There's more to me than just my nose.
Editors Note: Hemangioma Newsline does not endorse any physician or treatment protocol. Articles published in the Feature Article section are written by patients or their families. The stories are told by the author. Opinions expressed in the column are not necessarily the opinions of Hemangioma Newsline.
Reprinted with permission from Hemangioma Newsline (www.hnline.org).
December, 2001.
