DONNA Baldi was typically helping someone else when she received the call no one wants. Symptoms she thought were sinusitis were, in fact, a malignant tumour in her skull.
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The popular Bathurst midwife was in an ambulance with a patient when the devastating call came through.
Her colleagues – including other nurses, doctors and administrative staff – were equally upset and wanted to do something to show their support.
After much discussion, Donna’s friends came up with the idea of hand-making a quilt for her to take to Sydney with her as she underwent surgery and then radiation.
As news of the project spread, some of Donna’s former colleagues now living as far away as Cairns, Noosa and Dubai also sent through their patches to help make the finished product, which was given to Donna just before she went to Sydney for surgery.
Many of the women had never done quilting before but, with the help of Linda Aldwinckle and support from one another, they managed to make the most beautiful quilt patches, each with its own message of hope and inspiration, which were then sewn together to make the final product.
Donna said she had been blown away by what they had created.
She took the quilt to Sydney when she had her surgery in March, and said it “covered her with love.”
“I just felt I was supported the whole way through,” she said.
The nurses presented Donna with the gift just before she was about to get a family portrait done; surgeons were unsure what areas of her skull would remain post surgery, so a photographer friend, Katie Peters, offered to do some family photos for Donna before she had the surgery.
Donna said she was so overwhelmed with the quilt she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t because she was just about to get the photos taken with her kids.
“When I saw it my eyes filled with tears. It was overwhelming.”
The girls then included Donna in the Facebook messages, and all that night she followed the messages between her friends.
“I followed the conversation from beginning to end. I spent a whole night reading them and I just cried and cried,” she said.
Having undergone her surgery in March, Donna is now in Sydney having radiation treatment, and of course her quilt is by her side.
“The support I have been shown [since I was diagnosed] is incredible; I just want to thank all the beautiful people who have gone to so much trouble,” she said.
Donna also wanted to thank Professor Richard Harvey for his brilliant endoscopic technique in surgery.
“Everyone has been so incredibly supportive, and I just wanted to say thank you to them all,” she said.
