After, people said that it “would get better.” Or that I “would learn to adjust.” My personal favorite was the one along the lines of my gaining “extra senses to compensate.” I got a great many platitudes those first few weeks. Email after text message after card all boiled down to the same thing: I would survive. I would be stronger for this. I would overcome.
I noticed that none of these uplifting messages came in person. I got a great many cards and flowers. There were balloon-a-grams, cookie plates and fruit baskets, sure – by the dozens. But, no one came into my hospital room to hold my remaining hand, look me in the eye and say that they cared about me. That I wasn’t a freak whose bad luck could rub off on them.
The Process 
Because somewhere deep inside their primal brain, they believed that’s exactly what would happen. They feared that by associating with me and my physical weirdness, they might “catch” FREAK like a virus. And that it would spread to their children. And that they wouldn’t “adjust”, or that it wouldn’t “get better.” The smell of over-ripe fruit and chocolate chips begin to smell a lot like fear to me.