A Child with Granny Hands: A Case of Hyperlinear Palms

I've been called many things and many names growing up. People would discuss my fishy skin right in front me as if I wasn't there. They would prod and stare at it and theorize how this came about. But thinking about all that name calling, amuses me now. It seemed to mystify people that someone like me can actually live with something like this.

I live in the tropics where certain afflictions particularly of the skin are attributed to some curse or folklore. Great, right?

Imagine me, being seven arguing I have Ichthyosis Vulgaris, a tongue-twister of a skin condition. But people can just simplify things and tell me stuff like I'm cursed. My hands are cursed. Well, I really have hyperlinear palms, imagine the sight of "granny-like" hands on a seven year-old. The adults can't get over it, they have crazy theories like:

1. I was born with the mark of bad luck. They call it Malas.
2. A palm reader once told me at the shocking sight of my hyperlinear palms, "You will live a complicated life filled with adventure, heartache and riches." Okay, I don't think blogging my life away is the adventure I had in mind. Now about those riches? Hmm...
3. Its your mother's fault, she craved nothing but fish throughout her pregnancy and my skin is the result of it. Locals refer to it as paglilihi, the act of strange food cravings by a pregnant woman that would result in a freaky baby. Hence, moi!
4. Your mother bathe you in too much isopropyl alcohol as a child that's why your skin is so dry.

Personally, my mom blamed herself a lot on the Ichthyosis Vulgaris, she thought it was these medications she took while she was pregnant with me that caused it. Or that she didn't take enough vitamins for me in the womb. I think the concept of genetics and how Icthyosis conditions are hereditary doesn't seem like the plain and simple truth to her. I wish she didn't have to blame herself so much, but my mom is on a different planet on her own anyway. We're not very close you see. And I really felt distant from her growing up. But, still I love you Mommy :)

Kids and teachers would call my hands outright disgusting or really ugly. Or why don't you see a doctor? Why don't you scrub it off? You're Eeew, etc. They would even call others in like their co-teachers and other kids just to see how ugly the lines on my hands were. As a result, my classmates wouldn't play with me. No one would touch my hands during school activities that required holding hands such as dancing or praying the Our Father. One kid cried so hard when the teacher forced him to hold my hand, he felt he would get the disease, so I did him a favor and told him we could just pretend to be holding hands or he could hold to my finger so the teacher won't scold him. So that was grade school for me in the Philippines, having Ichthyosis in this small part of the world is no piece of flake.