Back to the Trail; One Step Closer to Recovery

Hello Dear Ones.

In a few short weeks, Team Todd “Road to Recovery” will be setting out to return to central Ohio to continue our trek across the Great American Rail Trail. Our team of folks, Beth Ellen Pennell, Walt & Leslie Krater, and Rod Mann, are all preparing to hit the trail for two weeks. We hope to finish Ohio (157 more miles), traverse Indiana (82 trail miles) and hopefully cross Illinois (142 miles). Ohio’s trail is all blacktop so we hope to zoom! We only have two weeks to ride as well as travel, from Sept 6-21. If any of you live near the trail and want to meet us, get in touch. (Dates and state park overnights will be listed soon on our website). You can find out the route by going to the Great American Rail Trail website and clicking on each state.

Todd feels fantastic while he is cycling this kind of miles and continuous time. It is so good for not just his body but also his mind. I have to share what kind of changes occurred in his daily life since our return in late May; changes I never would have dreamed of.

A day or two after we returned home, while I was extra busy with the garden, mowing, mail, wash and everything else, Todd sat in his power wheelchair looking seriously mopey. I said to him, “What is wrong with you? We just had a fabulous bike ride.” He replied, “I can’t do anything.” I looked at him and said, “THAT is a choice,” and left it at that. 

Almost immediately, changes began to occur. They happened when I wasn’t around. I would come back from somewhere and he would report, “I moved that pile of horse manure that was sitting outside the garden fence.” I said, “Really? How?” And he told me hope he was able to fetch a shovel and buckets, fill the buckets and then take them into the garden resting on his wheelchair foot plates and use it as a type of tow motor, before dumping it in the garden. He went on to prune the raspberries himself, weed the raspberries, cut out Jerusalem artichokes that were invading the garden. He cut out an old grape arbor whose vines had long ago died, which involved pulling out metal stakes and cutting cables, etc. He is also grilling, cutting up veggies in the kitchen for dinner, working at his chop saw in the basement, cutting up kindling and even sawing down some saplings. He even picked up his two-handed chainsaw to see if he was strong enough to handle it.

He began walking down the basement steps to his basement workshop and began going through every shelf to organize and throw out. In the last four years, when folks came over to help us do jobs and Todd would send them down to get a tool, knowing exactly where each tool was located…the folks did not put things back where they belonged and that made Todd crazy when he was able to finally get down the steps and saw the unorganized mess. So he figured how to organize his entire shop himself, by pushing himself around the concrete floor by his feet on his rolling desk chair that he uses to carve at his workbench. This new organization brought this German/Swiss man incredible peace. 

And he didn’t stop there. When our friend, Todd Bauman, who helps him walk and stretch every Tuesday, said, “Now we are gonna walk with nothing. No walker, no forearm crutches, no cane, just free styling it.” After practicing, he was able to grow stronger and balance much better and is able to do over 400 feet with no wavering. This thrills Todd. Both Todds! 

And also his carving. He is carving better than before his accident and has improved tremendously as an artist, which is crazy remarkable as he is working with one functioning hand and is carving with a one-handed chainsaw. But he is spending more time on detail and using his Foredom Dremel tool on the fine detail, which he did not do before. He has been fortunate to have sold over 20 carved owls and about 15 carved turtles. It has also given him the confidence to stretch out more and has a commission to carve a kestrel hawk, a bobcat head and chest and will start to do cardinals. And he feels so good knowing he is helping to support us as living on just disability social security is impossible.   

My one friend, Dave Broomhall said to me shortly after our bike ride, as only a good friend feels comfortable saying, “Maybe you could let up a little on pushing him so much.” At first I was shocked, thinking, if I do, he might slide backwards, or start to lose the little mobility he does have in his compromised right hand. But I did. I thought, maybe he is done with this rehab and just wants to live his life. After all, carving makes him so happy and he is carving every day, sometimes goes down in his basement workshop twice a day. When I said, “You haven’t touched that box of OT toys and equipment for months,” he said, “I’m using my hands to hold tools and brace and do all these things.” I did remind him that that are not stretching which is so important. But I decided to let him go pretty much. After all, I do want as fully functioning a husband as possible, but mostly I want a happy husband. 

I have not heard any murmurings of wishing he would have died that fateful Black Friday or the “I can’t do anything,” whine. After almost four years, I finally think he is starting to accept and turn the page. Starting to. And really, when I think about it, it is the long bike ride last May that fueled it. I have that trip, our team, and all of you who support us and this endeavor to thank for it. Who knew it would have such far-reaching positive effects, over and above the media coverage we had/will have again and letting folks know how important accessible trails and nature is for the healing of the disabled and everyone!

I have two roughed out chapters of my 10th book, “Road to Recovery” about Todd’s journey. The first two chapters are very hard and very sad to read, but I was thinking of writing the last chapter next…the actual road, this Great American Rail Trail bike trip, and its positive result in Todd’s life. I need three completed chapters as well as a detailed outline before I can send it out to find a publisher or an agent. I think it would be very good to show where he virtually ends up, that it is a happy and worthwhile result and worth all the hard work.    

Thank you for helping us get one step closer, one road closer to recovery! 

And remember, “We are all just one accident, one phone call, one diagnosis away from a completely different life. Stay humble and take nothing for granted.”

https://cindyrosstraveler.com/road-to-recovery/