Cancer survivor carves niche

Cancer survivor Lee Edward Warren carves a singing frog. (T-G Photo by Tamara Belinc) [Order this photo]

His love of wood-carving started when he was just a child. His mother paid 50 cents along with a coupon for a "Hopalong Cassidy" knife, which he carried with him at all times. "I used it to whittle pieces of wood I would find," he said.

Whittling is cutting, trimming or shaping a piece of wood with a knife. Warren never really carved anything until 2000, when his wife made a suggestion. The story goes that he would whittle along with a friend from his church, Smith Chapel United Methodist, which operated food booths at auctions for an area real estate agent.

Cancer survivor Lee Edward Warren carved this elephant. (T-G Photo by Tamara Belinc) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

"They would sit and whittle on cedar sticks while they were at the auctions," said Warren's wife, Betty. "They would have contests to see who could make the longest streak and how much it would curl."

Nothing was ever made from their whittling, so one day she told him, "Instead of wasting all that cedar, why don't you make something?"

A hobby was born.

He started out making small lizard, duck and turkey figures. He even made a Noah's Ark out of a peach seed. After seeing a "singing frog" at a craft fair in Smithville, he decided to make one himself. The frog sings by rubbing a coin or a stick across the top.

Warren says he can see something in a piece of wood before he starts to carve. "I just look at a piece of wood and see an animal," he said. "One day I was at work, and I picked up this two-by-six. One of the women who worked there asked me what I was going to do with it."

He told her he was going to make something out of it because he could see a figure in it. "She told me she always thought I was crazy but now she knew it," he said. "I took it home and worked on it two nights and made an alligator out of it."

He took it into to work with him and put it on the table in front of her. "She didn't really believe I made it," he said.

Raw materials

Warren retired from Jostens with more than 40 years of service. While he was still working there, he was able to get the tops off the skids to make some of his animals. When a new fire hall was built in Flat Creek, he was able to get some of the scrap wood from there. His favorite to work with is white pine.

Soon, he was making bigger items, including parrots, squirrels and even elephants. "I thought I might want to go to Africa," he said, "and I knew I needed to learn how to handle the elephants, so I made some of them."

He tried to make a mule for a wagon his whittling buddy made, but says it didn't work out that way. "It wanted to be a horse instead," he said. He gave it to his great-nephew as a birthday present.

Tools of the trade

The knife he uses the most is a Case "Old Timer's" model that came from his brother-in-law, Bobby Green, also of Flat Creek. "He used it in his work as an electrician," Warren said. "It was awfully dull, and he said he didn't have much use for it. I sharpened it up and rolled out the ends. It could slice through anything."

He rolls out the ends to be able to hollow out the wood when making certain pieces. He also uses a Dremel tool on them, too. Smaller pieces take him about 30 minutes to an hour to finish, but the larger pieces can take a few days.

Story of survival

In April 2007, Warren was diagnosed with blockages in his heart and needed open heart surgery with four bypasses. While recovering, he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which his doctor said was the worst kind of the lymphomas. He was diagnosed Aug. 28, 2007, and had six chemotherapy treatments through Jan. 15, 2008. In March 2008, he started treatment with a maintenance drug and will continue to receive that every three weeks until this March, when it will be determined if he needs more of it.

"I'll have a CT scan to see if I need to take more," he said. "My doctor said I was out of the woods now. I'm gaining weight and my doctor said that was good as long as it wasn't fluid."

During the course of his treatment, doctors often had to remove fluid from his stomach, once as much as seven liters. He lost 14 pounds in just a few minutes after it was drained. One of the worst parts was when Betty had to flush the PIC line he had in his arm. Every time she did, he would have deep chills.

"It would start as a little tingle up my backbone," he said. "Then I would tremble all over. I could hardly even talk."

Two electric blankets and a space heater weren't enough to keep him warm, although Betty says the house was blazing. The chills were caused by an infection in the PIC line, so it was replaced by a port which will stay in for three to five years.

Even though most people suffer from nausea as a result of chemotherapy, Warren was able to take three pills to help combat it and was only sick once after his first treatment. The chemotherapy did have some other side effects. He says it has affected his memory, balance and concentration, which is one reason he wasn't able to continue his hobby while he was ill.

Now that he is finished with chemotherapy, he is slowly picking up where he left off with his carving. His first project since his illness is one of the "singing frogs."

"Everything is coming back slowly," he said. "I still have some memory problems. Betty has to help me find streets in town. It's a slow way back. You just take it one day to the next and hope the next day is better."