News Update, on who SPT have been helping recently

Below is an update on an email SPT have just received from a Clic Sargent Social Worker called Anne who works at Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital. She contacted us recently to ask Sam’s Trust to help provide 10 year old Jack who had relapsed with Ewings Sarcoma ( a rare bone cancer ) for the third time and is now palliative. His mobility is very restricted and he is having to cope with a fair degree of pain. Both his parents are not able to work as are both caring for him 24/7 so finances are very limited and they wanted to get him a notebook so he can watch his favourite films, listen to music, be in touch with his friends etc. However , because of his fatigue , a notebook was lighter for him to manage rather than a laptop.

Sam’s Trust brought the Notebook Jack wanted and sent a cheque for £200 to his family to buy some shopping or something else they needed.

 

The Trust is receiving on average one request a week from Bristol and Gloucester Children’s Hospitals requesting help for children suffering from cancer. So far the Trust has never said NO and more importantly doesn’t ever want to. We want to be the charity that ‘Likes to say Yes ‘.

Thank you for all your continued support – we just wanted to share this story with you all because we think it hi lights the important work that the Trust is undertaking.

 

Below is an email we received from Anne, a Social Worker at Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital :

Dear Colin and Terasa,

I just wanted to let you and the Trustees know that I visited Jack ( the young man you recently gave a notebook too ) at the Hospice yesterday. He is very poorly now but is able to still enjoy watching his beloved Man U matches and the notebook allows him to stream his Sky TV from home and he can then attach the notebook to the big screen at the Hospice and watch all the matches, including last nights which was brilliant as Man U finally won. His parents wanted to Thank you so much for this as it means so much to him and them.

I wanted to ask if you can help get an IPAD for a young girl, who had a medulloblastoma brain tumour in 2010 and then a relapse in 2012. She has undergone chemo, surgery, radiotherapy, high dose chemo and a bone marrow treatment and her treatment finished the end of last year ( 2013 ).

As a result of her diagnosis and the above treatment she has been left with long term complications and has on-going cognitive, endocrine and neurological difficulties. Her speech is affected and she has skin problems and has substantial hearing loss requiring her to wear hearing aids. She continues to have regular follow up appointments and is under a variety of specialists and consultants, not just with Oncology.

She returned to her local Primary school but has a Statement of Educational  Need   and has multi agency involvement to ensure her needs are being met at school. However she is struggling to keep up with her peers as she has difficulties with handwriting and processing information despite having a 1:1 TA and needs lots of support at home with her homework. She would like an IPAD that she could use in school and at home to make all this easier for her.

Her mother has tried to access an IPAD through education but is finding it a long drawn out process because it wasn’t specified in her statement, and she still hasn’t been given a definitive answer and asked me for help in getting one for her daughter who just wants to try and keep up with her peers. Her mother hasn’t yet been able to return to work because of all the hospital appointments and needing to be around for her daughter as she is exhausted trying to keep up with going to school, so finances are limited as there are two other siblings.

Please let me know what other details you need from me if you are able to help.

Best Wishes Anne.