David quickly corrected me and told me that he was a star because his picture was in the paper the day before and stars don’t have to clean up toys. “The next day, he told me that he was a star,” Carol Ann lovingly remembers, “I didn’t know what he was referring to and told him that, yes indeed he was a star because he lights up my life. They were careful to keep him away from the attention in the media, but once when he was eight or nine, David saw his picture in the newspaper. Carol Ann fondly remembers Halloweens when David, dressed in a costume in the bubble, handed candy out to other trick-or-treaters through the rubber gloves. He was involved in all aspects of their home life. Science was protecting David, this was never an experiment.” David had friends, was schooled at home and the hospital by teachers, and played and fought with his sister just like any little brother. We prepared him to be able to socialize and eventually join the outside world. He accepted the unique circumstances of his life, but waited to find the way to come out of his bubble. “David’s life showed courage, patience, and understanding. Our goals were to keep David safe, bring the outside in, and make sure he felt loved.”

If it hadn’t been for the bubble, we would not have had him for 12 years. We were grateful for the bubble the bubble was the only treatment option available for David at the time.

Speaking for her family, including David’s father and sister, his mother Carol Ann Demaret explains, “As parents of an afflicted child, the only thing we had in our control was to see that David received the best possible care. Carol Ann holds David in July 1977.įor 12 years, David captured the world’s attention as he lived in protected environments to maintain relatively germ-free surroundings at Texas Children’s Hospital. At the time of his birth in 1971, a bone marrow transplant from an exact HLA-matched donor was the only cure for SCID, but there was no match available in David’s family. David Vetter, affectionately known as the boy in the bubble, was born with severe combined immune deficiency (SCID), one of the most severe types of primary immunodeficiency.

What is scids disease