To live in a separate world, without touching another human being, with a growing awareness that a kiss would kill. Could I stand it? While Texas Children's Hospital kept the press aware of the progress of David Joseph Vetter, with touching photos of the Boy in the Bubble, the reality had to be different than portrayed in magazines and the psychologist who David identified as his best friend has been fighting to publish her account of David's life for the last five years. The press releases showed a happy, well-adjusted boy cheerfully coping with his situation, but Mary Ada Murphy tells a story that makes a lot more sense, a story of anger and frustration, alienation and fear. I believe Murphy, I wouldn't want to go twelve days without a hug, David grew up without any. SCIDS can now be treated in most cases with marrow transplants in the first three months, and just this April success was cautiously reported in a French trial with gene therapy in two similar cases. If the disease came from a mutant gene the odds for David were no different than for any other child, if it was inherited the odds were closer to one in four - should the parents have been encouraged to have another child? And should the parents and the hospital have promoted their roseate version of David's story?
The first daily newspaper went to press on this date, as did the most famous editorial. For over a half century, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" was published annually by the New York Sun, today you can find it on thousands of web pages. A "children's book" was published on this day featuring hobbits, although I suspect that rather more adults read it. The first woman to sit on the Supreme Court was confirmed by the Senate today, and it's Independence Day in two former British colonies.
The day also saw two examples of sudden fury: A "strong category 3" hurricane smashed into Long Island, some predict that a similar storm will strike again in the next two decades - there will be far more homes and people in the way next time. And this is the anniversary of the first helicopter-borne assault in military history.
1784 - The first daily newspaper in the US, the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, began publication.
1897 - In answer to Viginia O'Hanlon's letter to the Question and Answer column in the New York Sun, veteran writer Francis P. Church assured Virginia, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." The paper reprinted the editorial every year until 1949 when it went out of business.
1937 - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's children's story "The Hobbit; Or, There and Back Again" is published by Allen and Unwin at London.
1938 - "The Long Island Express," a category 3 hurricane struck Long Island, New York, with steady winds to 121 mph, gusts to 186 mph, and a storm surge 17 feet above normal high tide. There were 600 fatalities, 63,000 homeless after 8,900 buildings were destroyed, and damages of $306 millions, the equivalent of $15 billions in 1998.
1951 - US Marine Corps mounted the first combat use of helicopters as troop transports in Operation Summit. The 224 Marines were landed at two sites on Hill 884 within mortar range of Communist defenses. From the staging area to the landing was eight minutes, compared to nine hours for a ground march.
1981 - The US Senate confirms Sandra Day O'Conner's appointment to the US Supreme Court by a 99-0 vote, the first woman justice in the 191 year history of the court.
Independence Day, Malta - anniversary of independence from Great Britain on 21 September 1964.
Independence Day, Belize - The former colony known as British Honduras was granted independence from the United Kingdom on this day in 1981, by unanimous order of the United Nations. The main issue was how Britain would guarantee Belize's security in the face of Guatemalan territorial claims finally resolved in 1992.
1971
- David Joseph Vetter, US boy, patient - Born at Houston, Texas
by Caesarian section in a delivery room at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital
that had been scrubbed down five times. David's parents had already had
one son of the same name, born in 1970 with severe combined immune deficiency
syndrome (SCIDS), a genetic failure of the immune system, who had lived
only six months before an infection took his life. David was immediately
placed in an isolation incubator, where he was fed, changed, and touched
only through gloves built into the clear walls. A test for SCIDS was run,
the results doomed David to life in a bubble with noisy blowers to keep
the bubble inflated with sterile air. The holy water for his baptism,
like everything else to enter the bubble, was sterilized. By 1974 the
first bubble at the Vetter home was built, and he was able to spend up
to three weeks at a time there, returning to his bubble at Texas Children's
Hospital. An meeting was held in early 1975 to discuss, for the first
time, the ethics of the case. He had tutors, and participated in elementary
school by telephone, but was troubled with nightmares about germs. In
1977 NASA built a special isolation suit for him, and despite press coverage
when he used it the first time it terrified him and was only used six
more times, a larger suit built later was never used. David laughed at
the technical errors in "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," a TV movie starring
John Travolta. Research continued on SCIDS (and AIDS) treatment, and an
attempt was made on 21 October 1983 to transplant treated bone marrow
cells from his older sister, and early signs were hopeful. By early February
he suffered diarrhea, fever, and vomiting severe enough that he was transferred
from the bubble to intensive care. The marrow had included the Epstein-Barr
virus, which causes mononucleosis in most but triggered massive cancer
in David's system. During his 15 days in ICU he touched people for the
first time, his mother was able to kiss him once before he died on 22
February 1984.
His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or
story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant
mixture of them all.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you
live near him.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay
for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want—and
their kids pay for it.
- Richard Lamm, Governor of
Colorado
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him
in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.
- Shirley Temple
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