"From an early age, I understood that I looked different from most other people. I was born with a condition called neurofibromatosis type 1. It's a genetic condition characterized by the growth of tumors.
My body lacks a substance called neurofibromin, which means it can't regulate tumor growth the way most people's bodies can, so I have tumors all over my body. Humans are humans, and people stare. I don't think it's malicious, just curiosity.
For the most part, my condition was something people I came into contact with navigated around. Then, one day in 2024, I was eating at a restaurant in London, near a hospital where I was receiving treatment at the time, when a member of staff asked me to leave. "You are scaring the customers.
There have been complaints." I was stunned. I didn't understand what was happening. I was born with neurofibromatosis, which I inherited from my father, in South Africa.
My brother and I both have it. I was born with a very small eye, a very different eye, because of one specific tumor. Throughout my life, as I grew up and went through adolescence, the issues with that eye became more pronounced.
Children at school looked at me differently. I remember being called names like "Cyclops." I remember wishing I could take my shirt off to sunbathe and swim like the other children, but my body is covered in these growths. It was a source of discomfort and embarrassment for me.
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