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donated quilts comfort sick kids at montreal children’s icu
on a hospital ward that sees as many as 1,000 pediatric patients a year, the blankets serve as a kind of lifeline when things get tough.
aug 24 2024
8 minute read
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when a patient comes into the montreal children’s hospital pediatric intensive care unit with a prognosis that appears particularly complex or will require a lengthy stay, one of the nurses will invariably dash to a special cupboard on the ward.
like all such units, the decor at the children’s picu is stark, designed by engineers who prioritize science and saving lives over coziness. the floors are grey, the walls are grey, the lighting is grey. during the night shift, one nurse quipped, even the staff look grey.
there are 12 rooms whose walls are mostly glass, so nurses and doctors can keep an eye on patients at all times. as a medical-surgical picu, the ward plays host to patients afflicted with systemic infections, or cancer, or kidney failure. some are wheeled in directly after cardiovascular surgery, or from having a brain tumour removed (“we get about two of those a week.”) some are rushed in from the trauma centre. most are between one day and 18 months old.
the rooms, which are kept intentionally cold, have more in common with nasa mission control than a child’s bedroom. a solitary grey hospital bed is surrounded by beeping computer monitors and stacks of equipment, wires and cables and tubes dangling helter skelter.
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into this “hellscape,” as one nurse called it, walk in shellshocked parents experiencing the lowest moment in their lives. a staffer will run to the special cupboard and extract a brightly coloured, handmade quilt festooned with climbing monkeys or teddy bears or rocket ships. he or she will lay it on the bed, bringing a cloak of warmth and humanity into a scary new world.
“in an overwhelming experience, sometimes it’s the little drop that releases the floodgates,” said sarah shea, assistant nurse manager at the picu. “up till then they’ve been holding it together. but i think that crying is often good for them. … they’re just so pleased that someone has taken so much time.”
sarah shea, assistant nurse manager at the montreal children’s icu, looks over quilting work by laurie mckeown-thomassin, right, at the annual donation night held by the group mothers for others at loyola high school in june.
john kenney, special to the gazette
the quilts started as a dare. in 2002, a group of mothers who toiled together for years as part of the loyola high school volunteer grad committee were watching their boys turn to men and saddened they would no longer have an excuse to come together. one challenged laurie mckeown-thomassin to teach them to quilt. she accepted, and was somewhat shocked when more than a dozen showed up to learn.
the beginning was rough. mckeown-thomassin insisted the neophytes learn to quilt the old-fashioned way, stitching by hand so they would learn the feel and scale of an art form that has been traced back as far as egypt’s first dynasty in 3000 b.c. they called themselves the sweathogs, after the ragtag group of high school misfits in the ’70s sitcom welcome back, kotter. rita antonecchia recalls her many early failed attempts earned her the nickname “rip and redo rita.” quilting, at the beginning, is hard, mckeown-thomassin said. it takes practise, and dedication.
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the women met every monday at loyola, the jesuit catholic high school in notre-dame-de-grâce, to learn and chat and solve the world’s problems. early meetings were enlivened by the regular appearance of father eric maclean, the school president, who dropped by with his “booze cart” to aid with inspiration, if not acuity.
“we had a blast,” mckeown-thomassin said.
in 2004, james o’neil, a montreal pediatrician and the father of quilting member sheelah o’neil, passed away, and the women pledged to donate 15 baby quilts to the children’s hospital in his memory. their first donations went to the neonatal intensive care unit, where newborns with serious conditions are brought. the quilts were two feet by two feet square. now most are three by three. some are big enough to cover a full-sized bed, for children on the ward who are as old as 18.
the group dubbed themselves “mothers for others,” to reflect the loyola motto for its boys, “men for others.” (the private school went co-ed in 2023. its motto is now “men and women with and for others.”)
a year’s worth of quilting for all to see at the annual donation night.
john kenney, special to the gazette
in mid-june the quilters got together at loyola high school for their annual donation night, where the fruits of their year of labour were draped over tables, chairs and bannisters for all to see. more than 100 quilts were on display in all sizes, featuring everything from geometric designs to rocket ships. this year’s theme was the beatles, so there were yellow submarines and a couple walruses, octopi in gardens, and bees (for let it be). there was even one quilt inspired by the chaotic and frenzied helter skelter, off the beatles’ 1968 white album, lying in stark contrast to the puppy dogs and rainbows.
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“i wanted something a little more edgy a teenage patient might appreciate,” the creator said.
each quilt is named. “i am the walrus” reads the patch on the back of one. “made with love by laurie m.” the quilts also have cardboard tags attached where parents can write a note to the quilter, if they like. “thank you for keeping the heart of our little lilla warm,” wrote one family. “your craft is much appreciated and makes a difference,” wrote kezia’s mom.
“we’re all mothers, so we understand what these parents are going through,” mckeown-thomassin said. one of her three sons spent 10 days in the neonatal icu as a baby when his lungs had filled with fluid. “i had to leave him there. i was without him for 10 days,” she remembers.
watch a quilter pick out samples for their next creation and you’ll notice the first thing they do is feel the cloth to get a sense of its texture, mckeown-thomassin said. the covers are 100 per cent non-allergenic cotton. the insides are filled with wool batting.
“touch is important,” she said. “fabric is very therapeutic.”
parents sometimes wrap the quilts around their shoulders to keep themselves warm. they drape them over their children when it’s time to leave.
the quilts are also a way for the mothers to show their appreciation for the nurses and others who work on the ward.
grace buchanan and mathew court keep watch over their newborn daughter, dahlia court, as she recovers from open heart surgery at the montreal children’s hospital. a donated quilt keeps her warm.
dave sidaway
/
montreal gazette
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on donation night, staff from the hospital came to collect the quilts and share stories on the effect they bring.
“the picu is a very sterile environment,” said jill gasco, a member of the psych-social team whose goal is to improve the quality of life for children staying at the hospital. “because of you, in every room there is a patch of warmth and love covering the babies, or folded at the foot of the bed.” to have something handmade that older siblings can play with and use to distract themselves from a disconcerting new reality “makes a really big difference for the families,” she said.
often, parents use the quilts to wrap their children in when they get to hold them for the first time.
on a ward that sees as many as 1,000 patients a year, many severely ill, the quilts serve as a kind of lifeline for staff when things get tough. this was especially true during covid, and again during the viral surge of respiratory ailments that hit post-covid, overflowing the ward with as many as 26 patients at a time, shea said.
“it was something that helped us hold our heads up. and to remember what really matters, and that someone had our backs.”
on average, 98 per cent of patients pull through, and leave in far better shape than when they came in, going back to their schools and friends and families. for those who don’t, the quilts are kept by parents as part of their memory box of keepsakes of their child.
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after 22 years, the quilting group has evolved, and their span has widened. with their increased skills, some of the women will stitch as many as 20 quilts to donate, some made by hand, others with machine, or both. most pay for the materials out of their own pockets, spending $30 to $50 per quilt. players from old-timer hockey leagues in dorval and pointe-claire donate $2,000 each year raised from their annual tournaments to help pay for supplies.
in 2021, n.d.g. resident rebecca savard opened the monkland quilt studio, offering classes and selling materials for quilters. she told her members about the loyola group and encouraged them to donate as well. they contributed 50 quilts, bringing the total donation to the hospital to 151 quilts this year. the mothers estimate they’ve donated more than 2,000 quilts for sick children over the last two decades.
their quilts have also gone to breast cancer survivor groups and palliative care centres, to the children of joyce echaquan who died in a quebec hospital in 2020, and to associations that work with grieving adults. a friend of one member spoke of how touched she was to find a quilt on the bed of her mother who was staying at the st. raphael palliative care centre in montreal. “that was one of ours,” the member said.
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the mothers are older now, and their sons have babies of their own. they’ve lived through their own hardships. some have lost spouses, or parents. some have gone through cancer. and still they gather regularly to chat and sew and give something back. members have changed over the years, but they still have about 18 women, including much of the original core.
“we’re kind of a support group,” joanne lalonde said.
one year they made a comfort quilt for one of their members whose spouse, brother and sister-in-law fell ill or died in the same year. another time, they learned of a woman who had been working on a quilt for her teenage son, but died of breast cancer before she could complete it. they took it, and finished it.
the woman’s son came to donation night that year, the quilt draped around his shoulders. he never took it off.
“sometimes it’s big,” lalonde said. “yeah. it’s big.
“those are the things that you remember.”
one of the nicest moments, the nurses say, is when the families are headed home, and the staff tell them they can keep the quilts.
“almost every time, they’re surprised,” shea said. “they assumed it was just a loaner.
“they’re just blown away by the amount of time and generosity that went into it.
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