Group fights cancer with comfort

SANDPOINT — Breast cancer treatment can save your life, but it can also work you over and wear you out in the process. That’s why two Bonner County women — both of whom have undergone treatment — became bosom buddies and found a way to give comfort to those in the midst of a trying time.

It all started about nine years ago when Linda Aavedal paid a visit to Verna Mae Davis, asking her to put her quilt-making talents to work on a new project.

“I remember the afternoon Linda came to my door,” Davis said. “I had been doing quilts for my family and friends and she said, ‘We’re going to start making quilts for women who are in treatment for breast cancer.’”

And so began the Bosom Buddies Quilters — a group that grew from the initial two women to about five members who met once a month at the First Lutheran Church. Today, the quilting group has a total of 17 members. Just as they did in the beginning, the women still meet to sew and socialize, turning out cozy works of fabric art that lift the spirits of patients battling breast cancer.

“Because Verna Mae and I had both been through it, we knew how nice a comfort quilt would be for these gals,” Aavedal said. “We’ve given out about 90 quilts over a nine-year period.”

For the first few years, the quilters filled the need by word-of-mouth, setting up a coffee date with people whose names had been sent their way through the grapevine.

“We’d call and say, ‘We’ve got a little something for you,’” Davis said, adding that most of the breast cancer patients thought they’d be receiving a book or other small gift at the meeting. “They had no idea what we were going to give them. When we pulled out a quilt, there were a lot of tears.”

Breast cancer treatment saps the patient’s energy and leaves them in need of extra rest, Aavedal explained. For that reason, she and the other Bosom Buddies knew that having a quilt to curl up in would make a difference in the lives of those who took one home.

“We were making a lot of quilts, but we knew we were still missing a lot of women,” she said.

At that point, the quilters began to work with the local staff of Kootenai Cancer Center at Bonner General Hospital, using their connections to get additional quilts out to a larger number of women in treatment.

Lisa Carothers, a social worker for the cancer center, now makes the presentation of quilts to recipients who visit the treatment facility at BGH. Those moments, when she can help bring light to a person whose spirits have been knocked down, are part of what makes Carothers love her job.

“The quilts are making a difference, emotionally,” she said.

“It’s a cozy shield that gives you protection when you put it over you. And women need that feeling of security when they’re going through treatment.

“When I take a quilt into a woman, they’re in awe because they’re so beautiful,” the social worker added. “They say, ‘This is mine?  Really?’”

Carothers credits the quilting group for gifting their time and talents, but also for making a substantial monetary donation in the form of each finished work.

“What they’re doing is expensive,” she said. “They buy all the fabric and they have it quilted. That’s why I tell people that a great donation would be to give money for fabric or to buy tickets for one of the quilts they raffle off to raise money for materials.”

The Bosom Buddies Quilters have just such a piece on display this month in the lobby of East Bonner County Library’s Sandpoint Branch. The quilt, titled “Stars in the Flower Garden,” features quilting by Dawn Kelly and an appliqué at its crown by Kathy Chehock. The group plans to sell raffle tickets for the quilt over the next few months to raise funds for future projects.

Increasingly, the members have a deeper investment in the quilts they create, as each one has come to represent a journey they themselves have taken.

“When we started, Verna Mae and I were the only people in the group who had breast cancer,” Aavedal said. “Now there are six of us who have had it. I appreciate the women in this group so much. Without them volunteering to sew these quilts, none of this would ever be.”  

It’s a statistic that has turned the monthly quilting sessions into a combination support group and philanthropic organization.

“We’re close,” Davis said. “We’re sisters.”

Carothers, who encountered many of the quilters at their treatment sessions in the cancer center, said the members are unusual in that they have stayed in the fight against cancer, even after going through it in their own lives.

“They are an incredible group of women,” the social worker said. “They’re cancer survivors who haven’t just walked away from it.

“They put themselves right back into the middle of the battle every time they make a new quilt.”

The Bosom Buddies Quilters meet on the third Monday of each month at 9 a.m. in the First Lutheran Church in Sandpoint.

Tickets for the raffle quilt are $1 each or six for $5, available at the Alpine Shop on Church Street.