It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a jigsaw puzzle patient, and I just sent one home, so I thought I’d share his story today. 🙂
Mr Theodore E. Bear, known as Teddy to his friends, was not feeling well. Teddy’s person wrote:
When I was born, my father bought me my first (and only) teddy bear. That was 66 years ago. Sadly, our new pup tore it up. I cannot describe my heart break. I lost my dad in 1999 and this was the only personal thing I had left from him.
Could I please get an estimate on fixing him?
I would so appreciate your efforts.
This is the photo she sent of her Teddy:
She actually had both eyes, and the tears were pretty clean, but Teddy had lost a significant percentage of his head and front body. We agreed on a treatment plan to include a spa (thereby removing Puppy saliva), and he flew to the hospital from Arizona.
When patients are in pieces like this, spa photos can be a bit… disturbing, so I don’t send them. Suffice it to say that given his age, the surviving cream and brown parts needed to be separated to be safely cleaned, and I kept his googly eyes out of the water.
Once he was dry, surgery proceeded. It’s a bit complicated when you aren’t sure what his original shape was. I sent this photo I found online to ask if it perhaps looked like him:
It was so close, his person thought it WAS him at first! But there were issues I could see with this sample. For instance, when teddy arrived one eye was on cream fur. So using this as a guide, but keeping that in mind, I went about putting him back together. There’s a fur whose reverse side is a really close match for older, well loved bears like him, and I used that for the darker brown areas. For the missing cream areas (which were really more of a yellow) I used a smooth minky fur.
Here was the first set of photos of Teddy:
Well, it turned out that despite the eyes being on yellow cream on arrival, his person remembered them on brown. That memory is what is important, so that part of his face needed to be adjusted. Also, the head and muzzle were a little too big, as was the nose… but his body was looking good!
Here’s the next set of photos (without the nose on… it’d go on once we got the muzzle size/shape right).
That was right! And then there was the new nose, which was embroidered:
All set! His person wrote:
Love it!
Thank you!
He’s perfect!
Oh, and lest you think I forgot his heart of original stuffing, he did get it, it just goes in at a different time with jigsaw animals that need lots of adjustment. Here it is being made and installed:
Teddy made it home safe and sound. His person wrote: Thank you so much! You saved him and a huge piece of my heart! Teddy is HOME! He’s wonderful and I so appreciate your hard work!
