Healing Hands: ICU Recovery, 3D Sculpting, and the Art of Creative Resilience

When you have hands, you might as well use them—especially when you’re stuck in the ICU.

During my recovery, once I was allowed to move around a bit more, I found myself with hours to fill. My brother gifted me watercolor pens, so I started with a quick sketch of the view out my window. But my real creative lifeline was my trusty tablet. With it, I could chip away (virtually, at least) at projects I’d been meaning to finish for ages.

One of those projects was a 3D scan of a sculpture I’m particularly attached to—an owl that, someday, will be cast in bronze. I spent hours smoothing every curve and contour, step by step, until it was as flawless as a baby’s cheek. Right now, the casting will have to wait until I recover the income I lost from weeks away from work, but when it happens, I have no doubt it’ll be worth it. As someone on Instagram put it, “It’s gonna be dope.”

In between owl polishing sessions, I dove into a longstanding creative itch: freeform abstract sculptures. The first piece that spoke to me was all about feminine, divine movement—rising like a flower or flame, almost phoenix-like. I spent extensive time refining its flow and proportions. The rest were experiments, pure and freeing, the kind of designs that might someday emerge in stone or be directly cast in bronze. Some shapes simply belong in metal with a patina that stone could never match.

Strangely enough, these hours in the hospital became a pocket of unexpected creative joy. Sure, I had Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime at my fingertips, but I’m glad my hands went to work instead. Aside from a couple of films and too many YouTube deep-dives into near-death experiences, most of my time went into making something.

And in the end, that felt like the best medicine.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below—I’d love to hear your thoughts.