So far, all of you must have known what it feels like to be imprisoned in homes. But now think what will happen if you have to imprisoned in a house for the rest of your life and imprisonment will also be such that you will have to keep yourself completely quarantined. You also know that in this open-air or even on your body, there are many such deadly viruses that you cannot see with your naked eyes. Luckily, not all viruses are harmful to us, but still think a little, what if they are all ready to kill you and unfortunately, if you are in such a state that neither you can touch anyone nor can hug anyone, then how will it feels like.
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| David Vetter inside his protective bubble |
Yes, this is all true, it has happened with someone before. Today we are going to tell you the true story of a boy who was in quarantine from his birth till his death. This boy's name is David Phillip Vetter, who was born on September 21, 1971. He was not the first son of his parents, their first son died at the age of 7 months due to a strange disease named SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency), a hereditary disease that dramatically weakens the immune system. After losing their first male child, the doctors advised Vetter's parents that any future male children they might conceive would have a 50% chance of inheriting the disease.
Luckily, the couple already had a daughter, who was born healthy, so they risked having another son after their first son died. Then as soon as their third child, David Phillip Vetter was born, he was immediately put into isolation and quarantined. The disappointing thing was that soon after the birth of this child, viruses started attacking him, doctors immediately understood what was happening with this child. Doctors immediately provide him a special kind of plastic germ-free environment that would be his home for most of his life. Of course with the aging this sterile chamber was also enlarged, now you must be wondering what will happen to his body if he is released out of this chamber. The answer is, within a month of taking him out of this chamber, all those viruses, which science has not yet known, will make David's body their home and then no one can save David.
But David would have to be praised here, as he grew up in the same chamber and learned to walk, but unfortunately, he never drank his mother's milk or his mother never embraced him. He could not even go out like other children, nor could he go to any school for study. So now you must also be wondering how he was alive even after being cut off from the whole world, and how he eats food and how he breathes. Before proceeding, let us first talk about this disease, which is called severe combined immunodeficiency, so what exactly is this disease? You can understand it in easy language that a person who has no immunity at all. Currently, you are sitting comfortably somewhere or doing something, but you do not know how many kinds of battles are going on within your body.
There are millions of such soldiers (a complex network of cells) in your body that keep fighting for you all the time against various diseases, they never stop and never get tired and they will fight till you leave this world. This whole system is called the immune system. Usually, its power decreases slightly with aging, that's why every virus is more effective on older people, but sometimes this system loses against some effective viruses and causes a person's death. So let's talk about David now, in David's case there was no immune system in his body, due to which the viruses you face every day in the open air, you are saved from them but David cannot escape from those viruses. Since David was locked in the chamber, his parents have been praying that his son be cured somehow and there was only one way to recover, bone marrow transplant. But it was also very important for him to get an exact match, which was not so easy to find. His parents felt that he would match up with her sister, but unfortunately, the Doctors refused them after determining that the prospective donor, David's sister, Katherine, was not a match.
Now let's talk about David's daily routine: air, food, diapers, and clothes were sterilized before entering the sterile chamber, even water was sterilized completely. Now you may be wondering how anyone can sterilize the food, before giving it to David, the food was sent to the lab, where the food was kept in a special chamber filled with ethylene oxide gas for four hours at 60˚C. Once sterilized, the food could be safe for David for seven days. An oxygen generator was always attached to David's sterilized chamber, but the problem was that the generator used to make a very loud sound, so it was very difficult to communicate with him. But the good thing was that his parents still did not give up. David had to stay in the hospital most of the time, so you must be wondering how he would have been moved from one place to another because his sterilized chamber could not be carried in a car. And if he walked out of the Chamber for a while, his death was sure. So there was only one-way left, a transport chamber so that David could spend time with his sister and friends and go anywhere he wants. Sitting in it, he also once watched a film in a local theater arranged by his friend. When he was six years old, NASA provides him a special suit that would allow him to get out of his bubble and walk in the outside world. But later, David felt uncomfortable wearing that suit and never used it again.
Of course, many of his interviews were taken, people came to know him and he used to come on TV many times. When he was 12 years old, he insisted on his parents and doctors to get his bone marrow transplant done with someone. Seeing that no donor match had been identified, he received a bone marrow transplant from his sister. Even after four months of the bone marrow transplant, he stayed in the sterilized chamber and all seemed well. But then the situation started to deteriorate, as his sister had given him a virus, Epstein–Barr, of course, that virus is still inside all of us, but it was fatal for David. And then what should not have happened, just happened, the virus attacked David's body, and immediately his body was hit by various diseases. He was kept in hospital for two weeks and then died on February 22, 1984.
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