Amanda Wolgamott’s son, Hank, has hemophilia A, and they live in Texas. Amanda shares stories about times her family has responded humorously to blunt questions.

So when he was a baby, he had an inhibitor. And so our treatment center had him wear a padded helmet.

And one time when we were at the barbershop, and we were sitting and waiting and Hank had his helmet on, and this old, old man looked at him and said, “Does that boy like to tumble?”

And we said, “Yep.” Because we didn’t want to go through the whole explanation of why he was wearing the helmet.

And then another story about the same thing: We were waiting for a table at a restaurant, and this lady comes up to us and is like, “What is wrong with your child that he has to wear that?” And we said, “Well, he has a condition called hemophilia.” You know, and we went through the whole thing. And then my oldest son, who was maybe 5 or 6 at the time, he said, “Yeah, he has hemophilia, but he also just kicked me.”

And you wish that they wouldn’t just assume that they know what the helmet’s for, but on the other hand, think that something is severely wrong with him.