“Inspiring” blankets donated to CMC

Paetyn Hopkins and her mother Kimi, along with Melissa Thompson from Cozy B Quilts, met with Lindsay Nuffer, Dillon Liechty, and other members of the CMC family to make a donation of 15 blankets for the Outpatient Services at the hospital.

Hopkins, a participant in the recent DYW competition, was recognized by that organization as an Inspiration within the community, and her blanket project is a good illustration of why.  

“For the Inspire Award, we were asked to do a service project.  I chose to make blankets for the outpatient service, because when my dad [Tysen] was sick he spent a lot of time here,” Paetyn explained.  Outpatient Services is where chemotherapy is administered to local patients during the day, and blankets are very popular with those undergoing the procedure.  Obviously, the process is uncomfortable and can be chilly in a clinical environment.  The blankets help with those issues, and the local touch makes them that much warmer.   

“We know that patients going through chemo and other things really appreciate blankets.  It’s super, super important for many people,” CMC’s Dillon Liechty said.

Paetyn ended up making 15 blankets all together.  She and her mom worked on putting them together.  “We got the fabric from Melissa [Thomspon] and the process is you just cut strips on each edge and tie them together.”

Her mother Kimi explained that the resulting blanket was called a “tie quilt.”  “I just helped her get the fabric, and do a little of the tying.  We spent a Sunday doing that,” Kimi said.

The fabric was provided by Melissa Thompson of Cozy B Quilts.   

“This was a cool project, and thank you for doing it,” Liechty said.  “Everyone here knew Tysen so well.  It’s great to have something coming back from him.”  CMC plans to have small labels made informing recipients of the blankets that they were donated in honor of Tysen Hopkins, who was beloved at CMC and still deeply missed by the staff.

“This was our other family,” Paetyn said.

The Hopkins were able to have much of the Ty’s chemo done in Soda Springs, as a result of the outpatient services facility.  They had been going down to the Huntsman in Salt Lake, but were happy to find they didn’t always need to travel so far. 

“When Paetyn talked to me about this project, I remembered that my dad had some blankets from down there were he started doing his treatments,” Liechty said.  “That was before we had chemo here.”

“It’s crazy,” RN Lindsay Nuffer said.  “I don’t think a lot of people know what we do here, or that we do chemo here.”  The local chem services are relatively recent, and CMC is still trying to get the word out about them.

“It’s a great thing to be able to do,” Liechty said.  The convenience of not having to add drive times into the treatment process can be enormous for families going through cancer.  That notwithstanding, the process is still grueling Dillon acknowledges.  “But it’s hard, too.”

“It is,” Nuffer agreed.  But like Paetyn was saying, you get so attached to the people that they are you family.” 

“As much as we were down here,” Kimi said, “I’m pretty sure they [the nurses and doctors] knew more about what was going on with my kids than anyone else did!”

Nuffer smiled.  “We loved the updates—we loved hearing what was going on with you guys.”

“You all became surrogate family—you still are,” Kimi said.

“Things like this are so cool to get to do, and have you guys be still connected with us,” Liechty said to Kimi.  “I remember when I got here and talked to Nate [Richardson] about setting this up.  He made sure I knew it was going to be a lot of work, and there were some hard decisions to make along the way.”

“I’m sure there were some hard decision on that end,” Kimi said, “but locally it’s been a godsend.  We didn’t have to go to Salt Lake or Poky every time and we could spend that time not driving.  It’s nice seeing familiar faces when you come in, instead of seeing new faces every time.  It’s just more personal and helpful.”  

“And especially toward the end when Tysen would have to go in for blood every day.  There was no way we were going to go to Salt Lake every day.  This was what we needed.”

Nuffer explained that “We coordinate a lot with those facilities to make sure we can get as much done here as possible to keep people from having to drive.”

“This is probably the coolest thing we’ve built here,” Liechty said.  “I don’t know if we truly understood the impact we were going to have on the community when we first started.  We thought it was an idea that would be great, but we didn’t understand how great.”

“Absolutely.  You don’t want anyone to have to go through this, but you’re glad that you can be there to help them,” Nuffer said.

“Ty liked to be able to do it locally.  He like coming in and teasing the girls—“ Kimi started, which caused an outbreak of laughter.  Everyone there had a story about a joke or prank that Tysen had made at the facility.  “You don’t get to do that when you go out of town.” 

“We try to do something, somewhere every year in honor of Tysen,” Kimi said.  “We do the blood drive in July.”  This year, the drive falls on Tysen’s birthday of July 10.  “At Christmastime, we take blankets and puzzle books down to the Huntsman because we spent so much time down there.  We make sure that the donations there go to the ICU or BMT floor, and when we do stuff here, we make sure it goes to Outpatient, because that’s where he spent the most time!”

“You don’t want to be there, but you’re sure glad it’s there,” Kimi said.  There are between 20 and 25 people currently receiving chemo through the facility, and Liechty thinks that the number is increasing.  

Paetyn herself is planning to pursue a OB specialization in medical school, and eventually return to Soda Springs to practice as a doctor.  “I want to be the one making decisions!” Paetyn said.