After the Fall- Carving “Miracle” Owls

“If I could just walk again,” is the hope of every “incomplete” spinal cord injured person. If the cord isn’t severed, even if severely damaged, there is hope of building new connections and charting a new course to get the information from the brain to the legs. Other nerves are learning new jobs so the messages can move around the injured spinal cord cells. With intense physical therapy these last few years, Todd has learned to walk again, first with a walker and now with a cane. Using European forearm crutches, he can walk over a very rocky trail on Hawk Mountains’s ridge. We’re working on getting him to North Lookout someday. Yes, you read that right. It might sound like a ridiculous goal but the physical challenge builds brain plasticity. Never mind that Todd has only 20% feeling in his legs and feet (as well as mostly everything below his injury which is at his neck), and he has lots of nerve pain which is intense burning. It’s not a lot of fun to walk as it takes intense focus and he must watch where his feet are moving in space since he can’t feel them, but it is everyone’s dream who moves through the world in a wheelchair to be able to walk again. But Todd wanted more. He wanted to carve again. 

A friend bought him a tiny one-handed pruning chainsaw in the first year of his injury. He was so excited to bring it over. His friend said, “Someday, I bet you could use it.” Well, he was right. Todd was nervous about carving again because he wanted to be as good as he was before the fall-no learning curve, even though he has to do nearly everything with his non-dominant left hand, which has now become his dominant hand. Besides the Chinese one-handed chainsaw, I bought Todd a Stihl one-handed pruning saw which is superior quality. It only has one size bar on it and cannot get as small as his dime-tip carving bars, but he has other tools to get better detail. 

Two other friends gave him their Fordums, a type of Dremel or Die Grinder (high speed rotary tools) but which is foot-powered and more controllable. Todd can use his left “good” foot and do detail carving after he is done using his chainsaw. He uses his right compromised hand to steady his left and hence is helping it get better. 

Todd is able to burn his carvings with a torch, although he “forgot” he only has one useable hand and one time, he put the torch down so he could pick up a wire brush to extinguish some fire and put his left hand right in the path of the shooting flame and burned himself ( He used to have a brush in one hand and the torch in the other). He learned fast.  

Todd is carving owls right now- screech owls and barred owls, of varying sizes and bases. He believes they are just as good as before the fall but take so much longer. He can only work for an hour or so before he grows fatigued (in his wheelchair so he can go up and down in height). I have to help set him up, tear down and blow off the huge amount of sawdust off his clothing and wheelchair.  I also have to make some bigger cuts for him, removing wood with a two-handed battery saw. My hope is that if he picks this bigger saw up (with the heavy battery out) and practices moving it, that someday he will be able to use a two-handed saw again. 

Two friends from our hiking club come over periodically to block out chunks of wood for Todd, which will become owls. That’s the first step. Then carving, die grinding with a forum, burning, sanding and then finishing with log oil finish preservative. He can’t make his carvings without help, but then again he can’t do much himself without help these days. 

Todd is happiest when he is carving. He is immersed in the creative act and loses all sense of time and the fact that his body is paralyzed. This much-needed break from the constant sad reminder that his body cannot do what it once could. And, he is bringing in some much-needed income from these commissions.

He is hoping to get set up in the basement to continue carving through the winter months and chase away the scary darkness that winter now holds for him. He is also hoping to move on to carving turtles and an owl relief to hang on the wall, or whatever he feels like! Here’s to working hard and progress and finding a way to do what we love and create some joy.