Does a Quilt Have Healing Qualities?

Since childhood, I’ve always believed that physical items hold certain attributes and capabilities. My mother brushed off these notions as childhood fantasies, yet as I grew older, they did not dissipate. If anything, they became stronger, especially as I entered adulthood. 

Twelve years ago, I suffered a near-fatal pulmonary embolism. It’s not something you ever want to experience. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 10 to 30% of people with a pulmonary embolism will die within one month of diagnosis. While that’s a pretty sobering statistic, in approximately 25% of cases sudden death is the first symptom.  

The doctors in the hospital where I was treated told me that no one in that hospital had ever survived an embolism that massive. The hospital was a regional center for treating pulmonary embolisms. In other words, they knew what they were doing, so when they told me that no one had survived an embolism as large as mine, I was more than a bit concerned. I attributed my survival to it not yet being my time. I also wondered if my handmade quilt that lay over me might have helped. Quilts can make a person feel loved and protected and comforted, something you need when you’re sick. Makes sense, right? 

Fast forward to late 2019 when I underwent surgery to see if a large growth was cancerous. It was one of those 50/50 situations where it might have been, and only by removing the massive cyst and performing a biopsy would we know. As I recovered in the hospital, I lay under the same quilt I’d layed under in 2011 and that I’d layed over my husband when he underwent a quintuple heart bypass in 2013 and another surgery in late 2018 – both of which were successful.  Over the years we came to call it The Healing Quilt. If either of us needed to be in the hospital that quilt went along. 

Ten days after the 2019 surgery my surgeon told me the cyst was benign and for a few days I thought I was good for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the Grim Reaper was not deterred so easily. Though I’d beat the Grim Reaper in 2011 and did again with the 2019 surgery, the Grim Reaper had other plans. A couple of weeks after the surgery, I began experiencing familiar breathing problems that felt an awful lot like the pulmonary embolism of 2011. An urgent visit to the ER confirmed that the Grim Reaper was at it again, only this time he upped his game. I had not one, but two large embolisms, one in each pulmonary artery, plus a slew of smaller ones. I was admitted into the hospital, along with the quilt. If the Grim Reaper was going to play hardball, so was I. Some people use amulets to deter evil spirits. Me? I use a quilt. My quilt. A couple of days later I was discharged along with a blood thinner I would take for life and a caution to take it easy. I figured that GR might finally give up. What was I thinking?

A week later I got hit with a serious bacterial infection that took me down like one of those implosions you see on TV when a company internally blows up a building in order to use the land to build a new one. I won’t go into all the gory details. Suffice it to say it was nasty, debilitating, and painful. My husband brought me a quilt, though not The Healing Quilt because we didn’t want it to get messed up. He brought me a different one. I wondered if a different quilt could work the same healing magic. Ultimately, it didn’t seem to matter that I was using a different quilt because I got through it. Two weeks later the infection reared its ugly head and once again I lay the healing quilt over me at home as I started a new round of antibiotics. 

In my latest recuperation, I took no chances. The Healing Quilt had gotten me through several serious health issues, some of which had high mortality rates. I figured that if the Grim Reaper was gonna keep coming at me then I was going to use everything I had to keep him at bay: the best healthcare I could find, The Healing Quilt, and prayer. In each case, I had a bevy of prayer warriors calling on God. I have no doubt that all combined that’s why I’m still here which brings up the question…… Can a quilt or other inanimate object really impart healing qualities? I’m kind of experienced in this matter and I can say unequivocally that yes, it can, but only if you believe. I did and I still do. So, back off, Grim Reaper. I’ve got a Healing Quilt and I know how to use it.