Dad's pens

There are times in a person's life where their very foundation is shaken, and that happened to me several months ago. I received a phone call one night from my mother, who (I could tell) was trying to hold back tears. It turned out that my father had had an accident with his table saw, and was taken to the hand specialty ward of the hospital in Baltimore. Upon first examination of his hand the news did not look good. The saw had severed most of his pinky, along with ripping all the skin from his thumb and slicing through the rest of his fingers. The doctor went into surgery after informing dad that he may have to amputate 2 1/2 fingers (his pinky, his thumb, and part of his middle finger). Dad came out of surgery with a slightly shorter middle finger (missing about half the top knuckle part) and with his hand heavily wrapped in bandages. News was touch and go for a while, the doctor was never fully sure how fully the hand would heal, or what the range of motion in the hand would be in the end.

The end result was incredibly lucky and amazing. While dad did lose part of his middle finger and the ability to bend his pinky (the 2 knuckles not attached to his hand were completely crushed) all of his other fingers were able to be meticulously and painstakingly mended. About 3 months later he was fully discharged from the hospital (he had been going in on weekends for check ups) and after another 2 months the doctor told him that his recovery was unheard of and he didn't need to come back again. Apparently between my dad's stubborness and my mothers brain gym (holistic healing type thing) and massage skills he managed to recover (in about 6 months) what the doctor had planned for over a year.

It was a huge relief to discover that his hand would be almost completely the same, as working with his hands gives dad his greatest joy. Somehow having a dad who didn't have a huge woodshop in his garage or create his own wooden pens, tables, chairs, beds, etc, just didn't seem like it would be the same. Out of this he has also turned into a bit of an inventor. With some modifications based on necessity, he has created different versions of nail clippers as well as a new design for his wooden pens. Every time an elderly person walks through my line (when I cashier) and struggles with the small pens we provide, I think of his oversize pens and how wonderful those would be for someone without full range of motion in their hands.