The sad story of the bubble boy: he could never feel a hug from his parents and died isolated

David Veter he was a boy who was apparently the same as the others. He was cheerful, had big eyes and lived with his parents in the city of Conroe, north of Houston, in the state of Texas, United States. He grew up and played, threw tantrums and was loved by his whole family.

However, the little boy had an immune system disease that made him vulnerable to all contact with the outside, so he was confined to a plastic bubble, protected at home.

The days passed there, inside a hermetic, sterilized space. He never knew what it was like to receive a hug from his mother or father and lived in isolation until the last day of his life, which, although brief (barely 12 years), is printed in documentaries, films and in several books that analyze the Vetter case from a psychological, pedagogical, historical, social, technological approach, among others. In his time he was baptized as “the bubble boy”.

He was born on September 21, 1971 at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the son of David jr. Y Carol Ann. The parents knew that the child could be born with the hereditary pathology, so they set up the delivery room in a sterile space.

The Vetters had a daughter named Katherine. In 1970 they had another son who was born with the disease known as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID for its acronym in English), which disables the human immune system and causes any germ that circulates in the environment to be lethal. The baby received a bone marrow transplant from her older sister, but did not survive the treatment and died at 7 months of age.

The family had been told by the doctor that if they had another child there was a 50% chance that he would be born with the same immunodeficiency. Despite the warning, the family wanted to give the first-born a brother and were confident that science would soon find a cure for the disease.

“The decision to have another child came from our hearts and minds. We decided to put our trust in God. No matter what happened, therapeutic abortion would have been impossible for us,” the mother said on PBS’s American Experience.

David’s parents created a plastic universe that had different environments connected to each other by a passageway; in them he had his toys, books and different sterilized objects. Furthermore, he possessed ‘arms’ built into the outside by which he could grab objects from outside.

Despite the limitations, David tried to maintain a common life similar to those of others. In a special space he watched television and used to play with a neighbor who visited him regularly. Likewise, his older sister, Katherine, was always with him.

As for studies, he had private teachers and also a telephone by which he communicated. When she didn’t want to do homework, she hid her pencil in the spaces, the family says.

When he was 6 years old, he was given an astronaut suit designed by NASA so that he could walk and walk around the garden, however, the suit did not have much autonomy and the youngest quickly abandoned excursions. Over the years the boy began to feel unwell and he felt that nothing he did or learned in class made sense.

The interest in the minor’s history brought problems to scientists and health professionals who followed the subject avidly, since for many it was an “unworthy existence” and was criticized for being seen as an “experiment” for science.

Years had passed since the death of the first child, but the Vetter family thought that the solution could be a bone marrow transplant due to the development of new medical procedures. The donor would be the older sister, Katherine.

The operation was carried out under the watchful eye of everyone who was following the case in the press and on TV.

Unfortunately, something went wrong and a virus seriously ill David, who had to leave the bubble to receive assistance, which ended up complicating the situation even more. On February 22, 1984 David passed away and shocked the world.

Source-larepublica.pe