The statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are repeated at the end of this article
Breathing is the foundation of everyone's needs, and when we are in an environment where we can't breathe without air, we are afraid that it will not be long before we die immediately, while as a comparison person can endure several days without water and food. But suppose one day, the air becomes "poisonous" to you.
Imagine that if every breath of air you inhale is enough to make you unable to fall, then your life may be destined to be spent under the protection of solitude. This is not groundless, but a true portrayal of the person - bubble boy David, whose life is spent in isolation from the world in the transparent isolation bubble house he built.
One day in 1971, while the other newborns were gently held in the arms of the nurses and enjoyed meticulous care, David was placed alone in a transparent sterile isolation bubble room. Why is this special treatment? [Beer]
1
The choice of parents, the painful birth
This is because he has a very serious disease and is of the worst type of congenital immunodeficiency condition. Normally, the human body has three layers of immune defense to protect itself from pathogens. The first layer consists of a barrier of skin and mucous membranes, the second layer consists of antimicrobial substances and phagocytes in body fluids, and the third layer consists of a complex network of immune organs and immune cells.
Lymphocytes play a vital role in rapidly identifying and destroying invading pathogens. However, for patients with SCID, these lines of defense are as fragile as paper paste and cannot effectively resist the attack of common germs.
In people with this disease, their immune defenses are almost broken. The number of T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes and NK cells is severely insufficient, and the immune system is like a blank sheet of paper, which is vulnerable. The illness of others may only be a temporary breach of the defense line, but they are directly facing a defenseless situation. Tiny viruses and bacteria in the air can become deadly assassins. For them, even breathing the air of nature has become a test of life and death, and it can really be described as 'toxic air'.
Why was he born with a fatal genetic disease, but his parents did not show the disease? This is because the disease originated from a recessive gene on the X chromosome, and David's father carried the normal X chromosome. Although David's mother was a recessive gene carrier, she did not become ill. Their daughter is in good health because she inherited her father's normal X chromosome. However, their sons have a good chance of inheriting the defective X chromosome from their mother and thus developing the disease.
The only thing they could do now was to create a sterile space for him to save his life. From the moment he entered the bubble room, he was cut off from humans, and every day he could only come into contact with other people through a layer of plastic. He can see but can't touch it, because the bubble room is inflated by an air compressor, and the sound is even louder than the decoration, which makes it extremely difficult for him to communicate with others.
At the same time, in order to prevent the invasion of external bacteria. Everything sent in is subject to the strictest disinfection process. The object was placed in a gas filled with ethylene oxide, placed at a high temperature of 60 degrees for 4 hours to sterilize, and it had to go through a 1-7 day inflation process to remove the ethylene oxide before it could be delivered to David's hands.
2
A life of "isolation".
In order for their son to live a normal school life like other children, his parents also hired a special private tutor for him to teach lessons. However, his perception of the world is not consistent with ordinary people. For example, he can't understand all kinds of common sense in the outside world, and he thinks that the world is flat, and everything outside the bubble room is two-dimensional.
In fact, a large part of the reason why David survived like this was because of his family's privileged background. The average family cannot afford this kind of care, which is why similar sick babies have not survived for long. He is special and unique to be a patient who can live.
David has been in the spotlight for his unique survival story, which has attracted frequent media coverage. Whenever a new film crew visited, he became the center of attention, and was even nicknamed "Bubble Boy", a name that quickly spread through the streets. However, this constant attention also made David feel as if he was in a real-life version of "Truman's World", and his life seemed to become part of public entertainment, which caused quite a bit of controversy.
He once confided in a psychiatrist that he felt as if he were in an invisible cage, like an animal in a zoo for people to see. In the face of this sense of restraint, he sometimes erupts with rebellion and anger. Even if you are in a bubble room that seems safe, you can't feel completely at ease, because during the continuous division of human cells, there are occasional abnormalities that lead to the production of diseased cells.
3
An illusory "hope"
So when the afterglow of his 12th birthday had not yet dissipated, the gloom in his parents' hearts was dispelled by an exciting news. It was October 1983, and a medical miracle struck quietly - doctors revealed that a cutting-edge technology could make bone marrow transplants no longer bound by bone marrow matching.
Although the technology is still in its infancy and its results are difficult to predict, they are willing to gamble everything for David's sake. On the day of the operation, everyone waited with bated breath, and in the end, the success of the operation seemed to bring David a new dawn, and he was able to break free from the bubble room that had bound him for 12 years. However, the trick of fate was far from over, and soon after the transplant, David's condition took a turn for the worse and he was once again admitted to the life-and-death ICU.
On the way to the ICU, for the first time in his life, he felt the tenderness of his mother's palm. But fate was so ruthless that this brief reunion turned out to be a farewell. After two weeks of all-out rescue, on February 22, 1984, David still could not resist the invasion of the disease, and cancer ruthlessly took his young life. This reunion is not only a rare warm moment between David and his mother, but also a critical moment for mankind to realize for the first time that a virus can cause cancer.
And he is both a patient and a valuable object of medical research. Although some have questioned David as a guinea pig in an experiment, it is undeniable that it is David's unique experience that provides key clues for the medical community to crack the disease, confirming the right direction and various potential risks of bone marrow transplantation.
Nowadays, advances in medical technology have allowed us to extract cells from the umbilical cord of a baby, greatly increasing the success rate of transplantation. Although David spent his short life in a sterile hut and was unable to experience the wonders of this world, his sacrifice was not in vain. His presence has not only promoted the progress of medicine, but also brought hope to countless patients.
David's mother once said that even though David could not grow up to be a doctor, he was still helping humanity in his own way. This is a story of courage, devotion and love, a saga that has not yet ended. Although David's life was short, his legacy will live on forever, inspiring future generations to continue to explore the mysteries of medicine and bring good news to more patients.
4
A valuable "legacy"
Although he has not been able to get out of the bubble that protects and restricts him for the rest of his life, he has saved more newborns like him from living in that hut in the future. One day in 2018, a newborn was born in a family in Hunan, in addition to the joy and longing brought by the child, they did not expect that the happiness in front of them was only fleeting.
Within a few days, they found that their children frequently appeared various diseases, and at first they thought that this was a normal one, and their children were not in good health. But after a few months, more serious high fever and severe infections began to come, and in the face of such a situation, they took their children to major hospitals, hoping to deal with their children's conditions.
What they didn't expect was that after looking for a number of hospitals, after a joint consultation, they actually learned that their child was suffering from a very rare disease. Yes, it was the same immunodeficiency condition as the bubble boy David above, which made the couple desperate for a while. But what they didn't expect was that the medical community had already made a major breakthrough in related diseases.
According to various immunodeficiency deficiencies, China has set up a special "China Stem Cell Group" to reserve a variety of stem cell types for various immunodeficiency types. Once the patient has relevant needs, various types of stem cells can be provided in a timely manner, and the matching degree for Chinese people is very high.
It is precisely because of this support that the hospital applied for a suitable stem cell for this poor child in time, and then performed an intense operation for him, and finally successfully transplanted this stem cell for him, which will make up for his congenital defects, recast the missing immune cells for him, and finally gradually restore his own immune function.
In many cases, the development of medicine is like this, they need a lot of precious and rare cases to provide data, in order to develop a lot of corresponding treatments, and then start in-depth research from these treatment directions. In this process, countless patients with serious diseases endured extreme pain, thus contributing to the progress of modern medicine, so that future people no longer have to endure such pain as themselves, and struggle to live in this world.
As some people have said, many of them have not actually felt the warmth brought to them by the world, and even many of them are inseparable from the maintenance and protection of medicine for a lifetime, but it is not meaningless for them to come to this world, just like they have been drenched in the rain, and they have put an umbrella on others.
Resources:
The Paper - 12-year-old "Bubble Boy": Born without immunity, he touched his mother for the first time before he died
China Daily - Umbilical Cord Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cells Give New Life to 8-Month-Old Children with Rare Diseases China Stem Cell Group successfully completed the 4,000th transplant