A COURAGEOUS youngster, affectionately dubbed "bossy boots" by staff who nursed her through a rare medical condition, has died aged three years and five months.

Paige Goble, from Lancing, was struck with a bacterial infection on Sunday and died from complications.

Over the last two years she was the patient to stay the longest at the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital, Brighton, and touched the lives of nurses and parents.

Her grandfather, Alan Matless, 56, said: "She was a great character. She was so endearing to the staff. She would ask them their names and tell them who she was and ask them to come and talk to her.

"I used to joke and say: 'There are children in here who are sick you know, Paige'.

"The hospital was her home because she spent so much time there so she felt comfortable. She was very forceful. Everybody called her bossy boots."

Paige was born with her bowel on the outside of her body. She was nine weeks premature and weighed just 2lb 3oz.

Surgeons performed the first of four operations when she was two hours old to seal her gut underneath the skin, but the bowel was diseased and

continued to cause problems.

Her condition made her immune system so weak she was highly susceptible to the slightest infections and she also needed treatment by specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.

Yesterday her mother, Michelle, 24, said she and her husband Darryn and Paige's siblings Chelsea, Amba and Angel, had all learned to lean on each other for support.

She said: "She was extremely brave. I think of everything she went through. It was very hard for us but we all pulled together.

"We had no sign of the infection being this serious. We are just all very sad and shocked."

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