Everything, Everything
Young Adult Fiction
Delacorte Press
September 1, 2015
Hardback
306
Life in Bubble
By Harper Stull— L.A. Times
Los Angeles, California
November 26, 2017
Seventeen years ago Madeline Whittier was born in Los Angeles, California with a very rare disease. The disease she has is as rare as it is famous. It’s a form of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, but you might know it as “bubble baby disease.” This means that she is allergic to the world. Her house is hermetically sealed, so it is like a bubble. She can not leave this “bubble” without risking her life. Madeline calls this SCID row because she is stuck in her house for her whole life. No one knows why she has this disease, no one else in her family has this disease and no doctors can explain what happened to cause it.
Madeline’s mother, Pauline Whittier is a doctor and spends her days taking care of and monitoring Madeline’s condition. “Anything can trigger a bout of sickness for Maddy. It could be the chemicals in the cleaner used to wipe the table down, it could be someone’s perfume or even an exotic spice in the food she just ate,” Pauline Whittier revealed. Pauline Whittier told the press that, “Maddy almost died when she was infant. She hasn’t left our house in 17 years and won’t be leaving it anytime soon.”
Madeline has only been around two people in her whole life; her nurse, Carla and her mom. Madeline won’t be able to leave her house unless doctors figure out a way to cure SCIDs.
Even though Madeline has SCIDs she still does a lot of things that we do. Her favorite thing to do is to read. She has a tradition that on her birthday she makes a vanilla sponge cake with her mom and decorates with daisies. The rest of the day the two of them play games, their favorite game is scrabble. Every year Madeline says that she wishes to run free outside like an animal.
Since Madeline is allergic to everything outside of her house, everything that she uses has to go through a machine. The machine sterilizes the product and after many times of the product being sterilized it is wrapped in many layers of plastic. Madeline says that she has broken many nails and scissors trying to get through the plastic.
Madeline’s home is all white, she describes it as an atmosphere of white. She says that the only color in her room is the colorful spines of the books she has read. Her books sit on a white bookshelf that sit against her pristine white walls. “My favorite book that I have ever read is Flowers for Algernon. This book always makes me cry,” Madeline says.
Maddy is living with SCIDs, her life might be hard and stressful but she is glad to be alive. Even though she many more restrictions than the rest of the world she is happy to be here. She says that without her mom she wouldn’t be alive.