Torbay Holiday Helpers Network

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Family Feedback

Please find some examples below of feedback we have received from families that have been helped by the Torbay Holiday Helpers Network.

• Duman-Dicks Family
  The constant 24/7 home care is massively demanding and requires a lot of time and energy, often resulting in long periods of isolation and exhaustion. Sadly, our financial independence has also been badly affected and we currently face a very long and uphill struggle.
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• Ralph Family Feedback
  Seeing the children running around on the beach, their excitement and the sheer joy in their little faces during our three-day break was wonderful. I stood on Paignton beach in the sunshine on the first day of our holiday with a tear running down my cheek, feeling such gratitude for this opportunity.
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• Roa Family Feedback
  Please could you pass on our thanks to everyone involved in THHN and the services we used. They are all lovely people who give their time, food, services and days out for free out of the kindness of their hearts, to help people like us take a break from the norm, to try and make new memories for the road ahead.
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• Bayly Family Feedback
  It has been a very long year for us and the upheaval of this type of diagnosis and treatments has a massive impact on your family and work life. It is only thanks to these sorts of organisations that we can even dream of having a small break from the routine and have something to look forward to.
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• Naomi's Family Feedback II
  We wanted to help Naomi - who is suffering from an incurable Cancer, her husband Graham and their little boy Devon fulfil one of Naomi's bucket list wishes - a family trip to Blackpool to see the illuminations - and build some very special memories!
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• Tayler Family Feedback
  Georgia who is 10, was diagnosed with leukaemia, just after her 9th birthday. The past year has been really hard watching a child lose a year of childhood, with constant trips to hospital, operations and continuous chemotherapy. It has also been hard for her younger sister who has non verbal learning disorder, to understand and cope with the fact her big sister is very ill.
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• Naomi's Family Feedback
  My names Naomi and I have secondary Breast Cancer. I was contacted by THHN to offer me a holiday. It came at the perfect time for me and my family as I was totally exhausted and fed up with the same old routine of hospital appointments, pain and being ill!
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• Bate Family Feedback
  We have just returned from a wonderful family holiday at the Hotel De La Mer so kindly provided by yourselves. We cannot endorse highly enough the good work of the charity, which is providing many happy memories for families such as ours.
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• Flack Family Feedback
  We can't put into words how grateful we all are to you - and everyone involved in THHN for giving us a week of fun, laughter and memories that we will treasure forever. You also gave us the quality time away from distractions - to explain to our 3 children that Daddy won't be with us for long and that we must treasure the time we have and appreciate each other.
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• Holmes Family Feedback
  When we heard that we had been nominated for a holiday in Torquay through THHN we were absolutely delighted. I have to say though we felt very apprehensive too because we lost Katy only 6 months ago and this was going to be our first trip away without her. We have been through such a horrendous time that we couldn’t imagine being able to enjoy ourselves at all.
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• Milne Family Feedback
  For anyone who doesn't know William's story, he was born with a genetic condition (yet to be fully diagnosed - we know he has a protein missing in his cells but the detective work is still ongoing). This led to cerebral palsy in his legs, a form of 'high functioning autism', deformed feet and a bowel that didn't work. Among too many painful procedures to count, and long months in plaster casts, William had a small bowel transplant at the age of four, in 2008 after having spent 80% of the first four years of his life in hospital, resulting in his sisters having to live away from their home and friends with their Grandparents. When a family is that broken apart, things can never be exactly the same again and so any happy times we can share together are not only real treasures but deeply healing.
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• Tarpey Family Feedback
  We just wanted to say a huge thankyou to Luke and everyone at THHN for a wonderful holiday last week. It came at a very good time for us after a stressful time lately.
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• Sweet Family Feedback
  We just wanted to say a huge thank you to all at THHN for sorting us a fab week in Torquay, we stayed with Sarah and Phil at the Brampton Court Hotel - and we had a ball!
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• Rozeik/Sutch Family Feedback
  Our son Alexander is just coming up to a year old, but was diagnosed with retinoblastoma (cancer of the eye) at 6 months. Since then we have been in and out of hospital while he had chemotherapy and succumbed to various infections, and he has had real problems with eating due to the side-effects of his treatment.
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• Williams Family Feedback
  I wanted to write to say a big thank you from the Williams Family - you often don't know how much you need a break until you've had one!
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• Pike Family Feedback
  It is just so lovely to see the smile back on his face, this has been lost for some time now after the traumatic year he has had. Spending time together as a family without the distractions and worry of hospital was really important and has done us the world of good!
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• Kian Jones Family Feedback
  What a fantastic time we had on holiday courtesy of THHN, the people who allow you to visit their attractions and dine at their restaurants are so kind. I hope they all realise the wonderful memories they are helping to create in uncertain times.
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• Bragg Family Feedback
  Meet Connor and Charlotte Connor is eight and the most empathetic and caring little boy in the world. Charlotte is six and is the toughest little warrior you'll ever meet. She is in the process of battling cancer for the second time in her short life but you'd be hard pressed to know.
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• Nimmo Family Feedback
  My family and I have just returned from a wonderful holiday in Torquay arranged by the local charity Torbay Holiday Helper's Network (THHN
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• Jones Family Re-visit
  The Jones family want to say a big thank-you to the THHN and all their amazing supporters for what they do and the memories they make for all the children, young people and their families- the operation has grown since we were last in the Torbay area.
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• Savage Family
  In May 2007 my beautiful little four year old daughter Naomi was diagnosed with a 10cm x 10cm brain tumour - barely more than a mother's instinct had made me take her to my local hospital and persuade them to check her out. Fortunately, being a member of staff there, they humoured me, none of us expected the diagnosis.
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• Sue & Warren
  Please see below a diary of our THHN holiday that Warren kept during our stay: Monday Today we went to Cockington Village where we enjoyed the horse and carriage ride to the top of the village and were left to wonder back down at our leisure to the centre of the village. Here were presented with a wonderful personalised glass blown paper weight from the glass blowers and other gifts from the Blacksmith, leather shop and soap shop. We went in to the cafe only to receive a delicious free Devonshire cream tea!!!!
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• Foskett Family
  Following a chest xray, CT scan, blood tests, asthma/allergy tests, ECG and bronchoscopies we had to return to the hospital at the end of May for the results which were totally out of the blue and devastating for Helen and all of our family and all of Helens friends. Helen was told that she had a large carcinoid tumour occupying the whole of the lower lobe of the right lung. This she was told by the consultant was very unusual in someone so young.
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• Hales Family
  Shonnie was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid, shortly after her 17th birthday in March 2011, she has spent 2 weeks in hospital recovering from a 12 hour operation to remove the thyroid gland and several lumps in her neck, another week for Radioiodine treatment and countless visits for tests, examinations and discussions.
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• White Family
  Thanks to Luke Tillen and his team at the Torbay Holiday Helpers Network they gave us a wonderful holiday a couple of weeks ago.
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• Day Family
  Nicks story starts way back in 1996 when he was two years old and diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (all). If that wasn’t bad enough he had it in the blood, brain and nervous system. This meant his only chance for survival was a bone marrow transplant.
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• Simms Family
  Thought it might be helpful to let you know where we went and how good all the people we met were so I've give a account of what we did each day.
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• Page Family
  The hotel we stayed at was the Marine Hotel on Paignton seafront and the staff were great, nothing was too much and they should all be commended.
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• Birchall Family
  A huge thank you to THHN for the wonderful generosity shown towards us , we have had an amazing week in Torquay staying with Nicola and David at the Tor Dean Hotel and they have been the most brilliant hosts to us.
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• Griffiths Family
  I am saddened to say I am composing this e-mail from Kierons hospital bedside, he took a turn for the worse when we were on holiday.
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• Frost/Willson Family
  As you know we stayed with you in June & had a fantastic time. It did us all, the world of good.
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• Coaker Family Thank You
  Ben Coaker was murdered last year in June in an unprovoked attack in Torquay. Ben’s murder left us emotionally struggling, and Luke appeared into our lives to try and add a few smiles that had got lost along the way.
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• Pickerill Family
  Our daughter Georgia was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2004 on her fourth birthday. Since then over almost 6 years she has undergone surgery three times, two courses of chemotherapy and a course of radiotherapy.
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• Flowers family
  We were introduced to a local charity LEUCAN who kindly bought Gemma a laptop and gave us money towards additional expenses. We decided to buy her a mobile telephone to keep in touch with her friends and teachers as she was missing a lot of school.
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• Brenda & Omar Simmons
  Omar was diagnosed with Leukaemia in June 2006 when he was just 6 years old. When being told you child has a life threatening illness it is terrible for the whole family.
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• Lottie and Jessica Marshall
  Dear all, this is a massive thank you to all of those who are associated with THHN. You made our week in Torquay magical, despite the bad weather. Everyone was so kind and understanding, it really showed us that there are some genuine people out there, for which we cannot thank you enough!!!
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• Carson Family
  The boys really enjoyed our visit to Kents Cavern and were made really welcome. As Matthew is learning about Victorians at school we then had a visit to Bygones Museum and again we were made to feel very welcome. After that it was time to go to Angels Tea Rooms for a lovely cream tea that everyone thoroughly enjoyed!! Then in the evening the boy's loved the "Laughter Show" at Babbacombe Theatre.
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• Daly Family
  Jack Daly our son was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma brain tumour on the 27th of May 2009 after eight previous weeks of being told by GP's there was nothing wrong with him. On the same day of being diagnosed this traumatic news, our 7 year old son was blue lighted from Reading's Royal Berkshire hospital to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford to undergo 2 operations.
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• Paul & Jo & Westley Bojko
  Well, we dont know where to start!, we want to say a huge THANK YOU for all what you have done for us both and our son, Westley. We felt very welcome from the moment we stepped foot in the door at the Marina Hotel. All of the staff were lovely and friendly and nothing was too much trouble. The Hotel was run in a professional manner yet the staff were easy to talk to and nice people.
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• Johnstone Family Holiday In Torbay
  We just found out that we were going on holiday in Devon. We were so exited it will be lots of fun meeting new people and spending time with my family it will be a very enjoyable week. We are staying in a hotel called the Carlton Hotel which has a swimming pool in it, will be in it the whole time. I just can't wait. We go on the 4th of January.
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• A Big thank you from the Jones’s
  Our Daughter Hannah is just sixteen and for the last year she has been battling against a cancerous brain tumour, she has had three lots of surgery, radiotherapy and many cycles of chemotherapy- she is still on chemotherapy and has had a stroke but she does not let that stop her from doing almost anything. We were not going to have a summer holiday this year as I had just returned to work after being off for almost a year to look after Hannah.
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