Cleaning the Shop, Living With Cancer
Living With Cancer
Where Strength and Survival Meet
A Shop Reset, a Cancer Reset, and the Fight to Stay Standing
A quiet reset in the shop that mirrors the reset cancer keeps forcing on my life.
Read time: 6 minutes
BY THE END OF THIS STORY
You’ll understand why cleaning a shop becomes more than a chore during cancer recovery — how reclaiming space becomes reclaiming identity, and how small rituals can keep a craftsman grounded when the future feels unstable.
A collection of honest reflections from the harder seasons, where pain, recovery, and resilience reshape a craftsman’s life.
The Reset I Needed
Some of you know I have cancer, and this year brought two major surgeries. Right now I’m finding my strength again — testing my stamina — and trying to get a much‑needed clean‑up done in the shop. A reset. A reclaiming.
Every shop has this ritual.
You throw out leftover parts from a job two years old. The “just in case” pieces you kept in case a client called back. The crown moulding offcuts. The baseboard scraps. The things you forgot you were storing, mixed with the things you knew were there but didn’t want to face.
I dug through everything — the shop, the tool shed, even the cargo trailer AKA the Walnut Wagon. I cut up old parts, filled the garbage bins, and tore out a shelving unit that had been taking up more space than it earned. Suddenly the shop felt bigger. Still dusty in the corners, but what shop isn’t?
Removing that shelving opened up a whole section of wall. In a small shop, that’s huge. The shop is always in transition, never quite “designed,” because it takes time to figure out the flow and the flow keeps changing. Every shop gets jammed up, no matter the size. The Walnut Wagon helps, but every woodworker has their own version of a Walnut Wagon — a place to stash the overflow.
The Walnut Wagon
This little cargo trailer — the Walnut Wagon — has become part of how I keep the shop manageable. A storage shed on wheels. When the shelves overflow or the corners start filling with offcuts, the trailer takes the load. It’s not fancy, but it’s dependable, and in a small shop that matters. I used it as a contractor for years, hauling tools and materials all over town, and now it mostly serves as overflow storage. During this reset, it carried the scraps, the old parts, and the things I finally decided to let go. Every woodworker has their own version of a Walnut Wagon. This one’s mine.
The Blank Wall — A Rare Moment of Possibility
But today I walked in and saw something rare:
A blank wall.
A clean slate.
A place where I could mount tools, build a clamp rack, or set up something efficient.
But instead, I caught myself thinking:
Maybe I should do something that just makes me happy.
Cancer does that to you.
I’m four surgeries in. Seven months of chemo behind me. And I’m very aware this might not be over. When the future is unstable, you learn quickly that nothing outranks cancer care — except the things that keep your spirit alive.
The Stove Waiting for Better Days
This little Drolet ML5135 wood stove is more than a shop upgrade — it’s a reminder of the things that keep me steady when life tilts. I found it last summer, a used stove with good bones, the kind you clean up and make your own. I painted it, fixed the firebricks, and set it aside for a day when I’d be strong enough to install it. Standing here on the bench, it represents something simple but important: warmth, ritual, and the feeling of being rooted. When cancer shakes the future loose, small things like this help me remember who I am outside of hospitals and scans. Wood heat has always been part of my life, and bringing it into the shop feels like reclaiming a piece of myself.
What Keeps Me Standing
For me, this website is one of those things.
Writing. Creating. Building.
Anything that pulls my focus away from cancer long enough to breathe.
There’s a reality where more cancer comes. More chemo. Maybe radiation. Anything can happen. Or maybe nothing will. Maybe it’s over. But with stage 4 cancer, the odds say I’ll be fighting again. So I plan in six‑month blocks — scan to scan — waiting for a tumour that may or may not show up.
So what makes me happy?
What pulls me out of the fog?
The shop, of course.
Writing these stories.
Building this website.
My family, the centre of everything.
And wood heat.
Since I was a kid, woodstoves and fireplaces were part of life. We had a woodstove at the cottage and a fireplace in the house, and Dad loved using both. He still does — today he’s got a pellet stove and a fireplace, and they’re always going. Our house now has a cast‑iron gas stove, and I love that thing, but burning wood is different. Splitting it, stacking it, seasoning it, firing up a cold stove in a cold house — that’s in my bones. The sound, the heat, the ritual. It’s elemental.
Do I need a wood stove in the shop?
Hell no.
I just want it. I’ve always wanted one.
It takes me back to being a kid, before cancer, when life felt safe. When the future wasn’t muddy.
Last summer we drove east of Brandon and picked up a little used certified wood stove— a Drolet ML5135 — the whole kit: chimney, heat shield, brush, tools. Two hundred bucks for everything. I painted it, replaced a few firebricks, and stored it away.
I think I want it in the shop.
If I install it, it’ll be a September or October job — when I’m strong enough to climb a ladder again, strong enough to do real work. Provided I don’t need chemo this year. I’m hoping not.
Cancer affects us all.
And as far as I’m concerned, this stove is part of my treatment — not medical treatment, but mental. Something grounding. Something that reminds me who I am outside of cancer.
A positive attitude matters in a fight like this.
And in my world, a wood stove helps.
I don’t know what the next scan will say. I don’t know what the next six months look like. But I do know this: the things that keep me grounded matter more than ever.
And if a little wood stove in a little shop helps me stay standing, then that’s part of the plan.
The gallery shows the stove from every angle
The parts, the steel, the tag, and the spot in the shop where it’ll eventually stand.
This story is part of a small collection of honest reflections about pain, recovery, resilience, and the life‑shaping shifts that come with illness. These aren’t medical guides — they’re the moments, fears, and quiet victories that teach us how to see life differently, one hard season at a time.
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Living With Cancer — Connected Through Behind the Grain
All of the Living With Cancer stories live behind the grain, gathered in one place so the harder seasons stay together — easy to find, easy to return to, and always there when you need them.
If you’d like more stories about wood, craft, and the history hidden in everyday materials, you can join my mailing list below. New Shop Ramble every Monday.
Written by David Flather, Red Seal cabinetmaker and founder of Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking — a Manitoba shop rooted in heritage restoration, storytelling, and real craft.
All photos shot by David Flather — in the shop, on the road, and in the places where craft and story meet.
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