WESTLOCK — It was a battle with cancer about five years ago that inspired Westlock area resident Michelle Madson to try and give back to other people dealing with the disease by providing them with homemade quilts.
Madson, who lives on an acreage in Westlock County with her husband and two children, said she received a melanoma diagnosis back in 2019 when she went to have one of her moles checked.
“It didn’t look right, so I went to the doctor, and sure enough, it came back with melanoma on it," she said.
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that is often associated with exposure to UV radiation. The mole's depth warranted further investigation, leading to a reclassification of the cancer risk. Once it reached that depth, doctors conducted a lymph node check in the surrounding area.
Three nodes were removed, and indeed, one contained cancer cells, which was alarming.
“Never the news anyone wants to hear,” she said.
As a preventative measure, it was recommended that Madson undergo immunotherapy, receiving injections every three weeks for a year. Luckily, she said her body handled it well, and since then, she only has to go for regular check-ups every six months or so; in fact, her last PET (positron emission tomography) scan about two weeks ago gave her a clean bill of health.
While her brush with cancer was perhaps not as serious as other people, Madson said it definitely changed her perspective on things, a sentiment shared by many cancer survivors.
"You don’t want to take anything for granted, and you definitely look at life differently," she said.
While she was attending the Cross Cancer Institute for treatment, Madson said she saw a lot of people who were doing much worse than her, which is kind of how the Quilt Project came to be.
"It really pulled on my heartstrings every time I went in there, and I just kept thinking that I wanted to ... give back in some way," she said.
Fortunately, Madson's mother Brenda Rempel is an amazing quilter, and they came up with the idea of providing homemade quilts to other cancer patients.
Madson operates her own custom apparel business out of her acreage, and initially, she came up with the idea of making T-shirts with inspirational quotes on them and giving away a homemade quilt every time a certain number of shirts sold.
However, that idea gained more traction than expected. Madson and Brenda became so busy making shirts and sewing quilts that they had to alter the process.
Now, they randomly select a customer each month from the local businesses and sports teams she provides custom apparel for. She gifts them with a quilt and they can choose the next quilt recipient.
“Many know someone touched by cancer, often someone close to the team or business. It’s heartwarming to see them pay it forward and in many instances involve the younger generation,” she explained.
Because of the tight-knit community in Westlock, Michelle sometimes forgoes the random selection process at times and chooses to gift a quilt to a customer because she knows they are connected to someone fighting cancer.
“We’ve come to a format that is wonderful, because it has such a ripple effect where it’s involving the whole community," she said. "It's been working really well."
According to Madson's website, they have provided more than 130 homemade quilts to cancer patients and their families. She said they have received many touching messages of appreciation alongside pictures of the quilt recipients.
“My mom and I receive a lot of heartfelt thank-yous, bringing many tears to our eyes. It’s constantly tugging on our heartstrings," she said.
