12 Year Old Boy Defies Medical Odds – Set to Rappel The 9-Story CenterPoint Energy Building

Most people don't have 'Rappel down a building in Downtown Evansville' on their bucket list. 230 people will be able to check that box after Saturday, April 27, 2024. They are going Over The Edge 4 GRANTED.

Introducing Wish Child Braxton - The Superhero of Over the Edge 4 GRANTED 2024

I have known Braxton for probably 7 years or so. He was little Braxton to me, and he still is, even though I'm pretty sure that he is as tall as I am! He is going to be super brave this year and rappel. We want to show Braxton tons of support, and you can do that by joining his team or making a donation.

"We want to show Braxton that he is not alone in his medical journey. This will be his first time going over and wants to have a big group of people going over with him."

Braxton's Journey

To say that Braxton and his family have been on a medical journey is a bit of an understatement. Braxton's mom Dennise has kept an online journal of his medical issues and diagnosis. By the time Braxton was 3 years old they had some answers, but a long road ahead.

Read more about Braxton's medical diagnosis below.

Thankfully, GRANTED has been a source of hope and community for Braxton's family. He had his wish of meeting the monster truck drivers and seeing the trucks up close back in 2016. But with GRANTED, the wish is just the beginning of their wonderful services for families with children who have life-threatening or terminal conditions.

Support Without Rappelling - Saturday, April 27, 2024

If you want to support GRANTED, but you also want to keep your feet on the ground, there are a couple of other ways to help. Braxton would love to see everyone cheering him on. It's a fun day with activities for the entire family, including food trucks, live music, a virtual rappelling station, Star Wars characters, kids' games & face painting, clowns, a cornhole tournament, and more.

You can also support Braxton by making an online donation HERE.

For more information about wishes and how they are granted CLICK HERE.

From Braxton's Mom, Dennise:

We thought everything was going well until a few months before his first birthday when we noticed he was having trouble keeping any food or liquid in his body. After his first birthday, he was diagnosed with clostridium difficile (C. Diff.) which is a bacterium that overgrows in the intestines causing problems. It had weakened his immune system causing him to get sick more easily.

That was the beginning of the many doctor visits, emergency room visits, seeing multiple specialists, and his surgeries/hospitalizations. Within the first year and a half of his life, he had many doctor and emergency room visits for multiple sicknesses.  sicknesses multiple times.

A few months after his second birthday he started the first steps program with speech, occupational, and psychical therapy. While in a therapy session, he was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder (SPD) or also known as sensory integration disorder. Braxton is considered a mixture of over-responsive and under-responsive.

In September 2014 Braxton went for his first of many MRI’s. The MRI was of his brain to check for a condition called Arnold Chiari Malformation (Chiari). In October 2014 I got the news that my sweet little boy has Chiari Malformation type 1. We went to meet his neurologist in December 2014 we found out his MRI also showed signs of periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) but we would not find out for sure how bad of damage he had until a year to see if part of his brain matures like the other half.

While at the neurologist we also got the news that Braxton has Cerebral Palsy and that there were three different spots on his brain from what his neurologist believes is an in-utero stroke. Before his third birthday, my little boy's health problems would finally come to conclusion of what we had been through and what we are about to go through as a family.

Get our free mobile app