Imagine you’ve had a rough day during your cancer treatment. Your hair has fallen out, so your head is cold during the Buffalo winter weather. Or your seatbelt is rubbing against your chest port. Or you just want a cozy fleece or crocheted blanket to wrap around your shoulders or to cover your lap while you sit in a waiting room or a cool infusion center. Maybe you’ve had breast surgery and you wish you had a specially designed pillow to protect the area. Or, after a mastectomy, you wish you could find a breast prosthesis that is soft, comfortable, beautiful and looks natural when placed in a regular bra.
“We have a remedy for all of these things,” says Martha Hickey, manager of The 11 Day Power Play Cancer Resource Center at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. “There’s a reason we call these ‘comfort items’ and, thanks to our incredible community of volunteer knitters, crocheters and seamstresses, we can provide many comfort items to our patients at no cost through the 11 Day Power Play Cancer Resource Center, and in some of our clinics and hospital departments.”
With love from Long Island: A Roswell Park doctor’s mother-in-law and friends reach out
While many of these comfort items are donated to Roswell Park by Buffalo area groups, including churches, community crafting circles, Girl Scout troops, and other charitable organizations, one group from the other side of New York state has a special relationship with Roswell Park. “Thanks to several dynamic ladies – including my mother-in-law, Josephine – who run a charitable organization in Long Island, NY, Roswell Park has received 100 port protectors, and more than 150 mastectomy pillows each year for the last eight years” says Steven Nurkin, MD, MS, FACS, Chief of Colorectal Surgery at Roswell Park.
“About 12 years ago, a group of women from our senior living community set up a charitable organization called Straight from the Heart, which we fund through community donations, fundraisers and activities,” says Marleen, the group’s treasurer. The group’s generosity supports many causes, including organizations that rescue and train service dogs for veterans, secure school supplies for their local school district, and provide “Surgi dolls” to help children understand an upcoming surgery. The group also organizes several food drives to support local food pantries and hosts a “Souper Bowl” event to provide weekend meals for food-insecure elementary-age children.
But by far, the group’s biggest annual project is making two types of comfort items for the patients at Roswell Park: port covers, which can be affixed and positioned on a vehicle seat belt to minimize pressure on the chest port area, and mastectomy pillows, which can be placed under the armpit and positioned to minimize pressure on mastectomy and breast surgery incisions and scars.
Although the group had been making these comfort items for a while, when Josephine joined the community eight years ago, she noted that cancer patients at Roswell Park might appreciate the port covers and mastectomy pillows. “There are 17 of us who work on creating the mastectomy pillows. Susan sources, purchases and stores fabric, stuffing and sewing supplies throughout the year, and we would never be able to accomplish so much without all the work that she puts in keeping us organized and motivated,” says Marleen.
The 11 Day Power Play Cancer Resource Center
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“The group meets twice a week from September until about the end of January. We came up with our own pattern for the pillows, and at the meetings we all iron, cut, organize and pin the fabric for more than a hundred pillows,” says Josephine. "Then our members with sewing machines – Susan, Eileen, Marleen and Helen – take the cut fabric pieces home and partially construct the pillows. At subsequent meetings, we all work to stuff the pillows and hand stitch them closed. In early February, we package the completed pillows, along with the 100 port covers, and send them to Roswell Park.”
While the pillows are a group project, Eileen is the single force behind the seatbelt port covers. A talented quilter, seamstress, and a 30-year breast cancer survivor, each year Eileen makes all 100 port covers herself, starting in the summer. “The port covers I designed are larger than many I had seen, to provide better coverage and a Velcro fastener holds the cover in place on the seatbelt,” she says, adding that when she was treated for breast cancer 30 years ago, these kinds of comfort items weren’t provided to patients.
Donating to Roswell Park and the 11 Day Power Play Cancer Resource Center
Why do the women in this group, and in countless other community groups, donate their resources, time and talents to provide comfort items for patients at Roswell Park? “It’s a labor of love,” says Susan.
“I hope these women know that their selfless acts of generosity provide both emotional and practical comfort to our patients when they need it most,” says Dr. Nurkin.
“The comfort these donations provide for our patients are priceless,” says Hickey. “We absolutely could not do this without the generous donations from all of our community knitters, crocheters and seamstresses.” If you or your group would like more information about creating and donating comfort items to Roswell Park patients, contact the 11 Day Power Play Cancer Resource Center at 716-845-8659 (Option 1) or email ResourceCenter@RoswellPark.org.