Meet the Veld family

The Veld Family are constantly going backwards and forwards to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead where their 9 year old daughter, Hannah is receiving treatment for her genetic mutation. There are often weekly visits for physio for the deformative condition of her feet and a variety of doctors appointments, ranging from Neurologists to Orthopaedics. Each month Hannah needs an infusion that takes a full day to go through, sometimes leading to an overnight stay.

Hannah was diagnosed with Epilepsy at the age of 3 years old back in November 2011. This lead to Hannah's mum giving up work to be her full time carer. Hannah underwent a variety of test to find the cause of her Epilepsy but this wasn’t known until March 2014 when she was diagnosed with a genetic mutation.

"Having a break at this Retreat is ideal as it brings us together as a family,

which rarely happens with everyone’s busy lives."

Last year in August 2016, Hannah fell quite ill and was admitted to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead for 3 weeks. After many tests, an MRI lead to finding that she has Atrophy of the brain, caused by her condition. 

Hannah is a beautiful, loving and caring 9 year old that doesn’t let her condition get the better of her. She gives everything a go, even though, due to her mild intellectual learning difficulty, some things may be hard. We work out how to make things fun for her.

 "We are blessed to have the support of Ronald McDonald House Northern NSW to allow us to come and stay at their Retreat. We can be a family when we are here and leave all of our worries behind us"