Combined Immune Deficiency Disease (CIDD)
ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will feature the Cerda family from Las Vegas, NV who is combating Combined Immune Deficiency Disease (CIDD). Extreme Makeover: Home Edition rebuilds the home of two ill daughters of Terri and Chuck Cerda, Molly and Maggie who must live in a sterile bubble to survive.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition tells the Cerda family that their unfit home, which is threatening the lives of their two daughters who have an immune disorder, will be rebuilt in seven days. Terri and Chuck Cerda’s two daughters, Molly and Maggie, were diagnosed with Combined Immune Deficiency Disease (CIDD) at the age of three and are now living in a home that is threatening their lives.
Combined Immune Deficiency Disease (CIDD) is a disorder of the immune system similar to that suffered by David Vetter, the “boy in the bubble” which means that a simple cold is a life threatening lung infection.
Chuck Cerda works as a Homeland Security police officer, and his wife, Terri, has worked all her life in global relief, organizing search & rescue dog services during disasters such as the Mexico City earthquakes and the Colombia mudslides. She’s also worked as a volunteer for a number of community organizations, including the fire department and ambulance service.
Terri has used her experience as an advocate and mother of two ill children to found Artful Hearts, which gives painting murals to organizations, clinics and foundations that operate to support other children fighting life threatening medical conditions. She also works as a patient advocate for the Immune Deficiency Foundation, a position which has taken her to Washington, DC to meet with senators to influence laws governing medications that could save thousands of lives.
In 2004 the Cerdas were fraudulently sold a home that was in poor condition while their oldest daughter lay in intensive care. After six floods, they were forced to make repairs themselves, but after a recent inspection, structural engineers advised them to gut the house or tear it down and rebuild. The water damage is extensive and sewage continues to back up into the home. A load bearing beam is also threatening the structural integrity of the house.
While Ty and the designers, local builder Wright Custom Home and hundreds of volunteers and workers are rebuilding their home, the Cerda family will go on vacation to Maui, Hawaii.
About Primary immunodeficiency diseases (PIDD)
Primary immunodeficiency diseases occur in patients born with an immune system that is either absent or poorly functioning. There are over 150 different types of PIDD, all caused by genetic or intrinsic defects. People with PIDD live their entire lives more susceptible to infections–enduring recurrent health problems and often developing serious and debilitating illnesses. With early diagnosis and appropriate therapies, many patients can live healthy and productive lives. Although some PIDD manifest in infancy or early childhood, some forms can occur in any decade of life.
Primary immunodeficiency diseases were a recent topic on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where Representatives Israel (D-NY), Brady (R-TX) and Schwartz (D-PA), and Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Alexander (R-TN), introduced the Medicare Patient IVIG Access Act of 2009 (H.R. 2002 and S. 701 respectively) - meant to remedy inadequate Medicare reimbursements for intravenous immune globulin (IVIG), and allow home infusion of IVIG for Medicare beneficiaries with PIDD.
IVIG is a life-saving and life-enhancing therapy for tens of thousands of patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases, including Terri Cerda and her daughters. As a result of very high co-pay costs and inadequate reimbursement by Medicare, Cerda has not been able to receive her bimonthly infusions of IVIG for over five months, leaving her to constantly live in fear of an infection that could hinder her ability to care for her daughters
Helpful Links:
- Severe Combined Immunodeficiency: eMedicine Pediatrics
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Immune Deficiency Disease, any one of a group of diseases caused by the … from B- and T-lymphocyte malfunction is severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). …
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SCID, Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, is a primary immune deficiency. … SCID is often called “bubble boy disease“. SCID became widely known during the …
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eMedicine - Severe Combined Immune Deficiency - disease description … Gene Therapy of Human Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID)-X1 Disease — Science
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