LAURINBURG — Brayden Stubbs made an entrance in this world 25 weeks premature and spent the first eight months of his life at Duke University Hospital. Despite that challenging start and the complications he’s faced over his first nine years, his family says he’s still the happiest boy.
Brayden was born on Sept. 30, 2009, and immediately began to face health problems. The newborn suffered from brain bleeds and necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC.
NEC is the most common and serious intestinal disease among premature babies. It happens when tissue in the small or large intestine is injured or inflamed which can lead to the death of intestinal tissue. This happened to Brayden, with some of his intestines dying and leading to him developing Short Bowel Syndrome.
The 9-year-old also developed cerebral palsy due to a lack of oxygen to his brain and is on a feeding tube in order to get his body the nutrients it needs. But despite all this, his grandmother, Melissa Oxendine, says that he always has a smile on his face.
“He’s never sad,” Oxendine said. “Even when he’s coded before and had to be put on a ventilator he wakes up with a smile on his face. I’ve never seen him cry and everyone says he’s the happiest little boy.”
Brayden is currently on the list to get a small bowel transplant in hopes of allowing him to be able to eat and gain weight. Oxendine added that she’s thankful for the community since, in 2011, when Brayden got sick again, the community came together to put on a car wash and collected several thousand dollars.
Recently Brayden was granted a trip by Make A Wish where he, along with his parents Courtney and Jeremy Clark, will be going to New Jersey to watch the WWE Smackdown in the first week of April and stay for a week.
“He loves wrestling so that’s what he wanted to do,” Oxendine said. “He loves John Cena and can name all the wrestlers off the top of his head. We’ve taken him to some of the local wrestling events and his eyes just lit up when he saw the ring in real life.”
This isn’t the first time that the family has been granted a Make-A-Wish trip. In 2013, Oxendine’s youngest daughter was granted a trip to Hawaii while she was suffering from stage-four Lupus.
“It made such a big impact on all of us,” Oxendine said. “So we’ve seen what they do and how they treat those who are going on the trips and what an impact they make.”
Katelin Gandee can be reached at 910-506-3171 or [email protected].
