Toddler Battles 'Bubble Boy' Syndrome

Aug. 29 -- Imagine a life where the common cold or the tiniest germ could potentially kill you. That's the world toddler Mason Williams is living in.

Mason and his twin brother, Peyton, are growing-up in Indianapolis, Ind. Their father, Joe, is a contractor. Their mother, Rachel, is a medical secretary. They look like any normal family. But they're living anything but a normal life.

Mason is suffering from a rare and deadly disorder called SCIDS, severe combined immunodeficiency disease. The illness first became known to the American public in the 1976 John Travolta movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

A ‘Time Bomb’

Like the character in the Travolta film, Mason's body doesn't produce enough white blood cells to protect him from any illness. The movie dramatized the real life world of kids separated from a world of germs by a plastic bubble.

Mason isn't surrounded by plastic, but he is trapped in a bubble of sorts. He is isolated with his family.

Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, a leading authority on SCIDS, said Mason's illness is so severe "he's almost like a time bomb."

Kurtzberg said, "He looks very healthy, but he at any minute could contract an infection that a few days later would take his life. He wouldn't live to go to nursery school or go to kindergarten if he doesn't get a transplant."

Kurtzberg says Mason's only chance for survival is a stem-cell transplant, a transfusion of life building blood cells which can miraculously create a brand new immune system. The cells are usually taken from a parent's bone marrow, because they provide the best genetic match. She has pioneered transplant techniques to help SCIDS patients at North Carolina's Duke University.

But the transplants don't always work.

Eight years ago, Joe and Rachel's first child, Tyler, was born with "bubble boy syndrome." At first, they didn't understand why he was constantly sick.

"We even had a doctor who kind of questioned things, and would make little remarks. … And that makes you question yourself all the more. … If a doctor is questioning you, you start to think, well, maybe it is me," Rachel said.

Tyler was 18 months old before doctors figured out his problem. So the couple tried a stem-cell transplant to save the boy's life. Joe donated his stem cells from his bone marrow. But by then, it was too late. Tyler was too weak to fight off the smallest infection.