February 10, 2010
They’ve been seen riding public transit and they’ve been spotted at the airport.
More than 25,000 of them are out there.
They are red, heart-shaped pillows and they’ve been a unique form of comfort for heart surgery patients in Edmonton for 17 years.
“The pillows have gone miles,” says Marjory Molofy. “They mean different things to different people and they all have different stories.”
Since 1993, Molofy and a group of 25 volunteers have met twice a month to hand-stitch the pillows. The volunteers – most of them retired Telus employees or spouses of Telus workers – have made more than 26,000 pillows (about 130 pillows a month) for cardiac patients over the 17 years.
Heart pillows bring more than comfort to ease the pain and anxiety patients can feel after surgery. They also have therapeutic value, as the pillows support patients’ chests when they cough or sneeze.
“Some patients compare (the pillows) to Tom Hanks’s best friend, Wilson, in the movie Castaway,” says Carol Manson-McLeod, director of the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute.
Bosko Radujko, a patient at the Mazankowski, holds his heart pillow close to him.
“It doesn’t leave my chest,” said Radujko.
Molofy says the pillows often end up as keepsakes patients treasure for years after surgery.
After making pillows for 10 years, Molofy received her own heart pillow after triple-bypass surgery in 2003.
”The ladies all signed my pillow and it really did help me recover.”
Friends of the Chinook Regional Hospital Kraft Club in Lethbridge also make heart pillows, which are sent to cardiac patients at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary.
February is Heart Month.
