Rich Didrickson (1955-2013)

10/08/2013 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 7 Comments

“Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.” — Herman Melville

It sent me back on my heels and against the ropes.

I was so surprised that time stopped.

It’s disappointment struck like a head-on collision.

When I answered I heard the life expectancy; but I expected a little empathy; not the credibly, relative destiny.

It was a bombshell aimed dead-center to insure the greatest damage.

It was the end of one of several episodes.

It was the start of a new episode.

It was colorless. Soundless. Sightless.

It’s coldness remained near me, like walking out of a freezer.

It underestimated its infliction of cruelty.

Rick had the courage and nerve and right to refuse pain medications, food, and finally liquids. His pledge to himself guaranteed freedom from his hellish suffering that heroic measures caused, and found his real life patiently waiting at the gates of heaven on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 at precisely 1:00 p.m.

It’s impossible for me to estimate the number of people who now have holes in their hearts where Rick used to be.

Heartache . . .

07/12/201307/12/2013 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

Heartache . . .

That mysteriously deep thawing of hope; that dank, on-going, torrential rain; that ache which hasn’t surfaced in almost 40 years; that ache of loneliness, of silence, of early dusks and late dawns; that aching pain of your soul being wrung like a dishrag; bookends of despair and pain on either side of sleep; the torture of sobbing in a diner.

Heartache . . .

That frightening moment which descends like a parachute upon throwing the deadbolt; ascending the stairs and sensing a household hollowness; this isn’t my home yet I’m its caretaker; he isn’t a parent, he’s my brother. But my role has changed dramatically: his transference of authority known as power of attorney (durable and healthcare) has eliminated any aheartache2 mourning I may have expressed. I’m his representative and to an ignorant outside world he hasn’t really disappeared behind the safety of managed care, but has grown taller by five inches.

Heartache . . .

This designation has robbed me of mourning. Instead I’ve got to be as sharp as a tack, thoroughly abreast of medical and financial details, composed at all hours in anticipation of that dreadfully somber tone of the caller. I’ve got to nurture relationships at the bank, his current residential facility, his physicians, his pharmacists, his auto mechanic. My sleepless burden, borrowing a term from football, a handoff. He’s handed me his life like a principal to a ripe substitute teacher mumbling, “Good luck being Mrs. Brown: they loved her and will see you as an interloper.” Imagine being someone else, especially someone that enjoyed a circle of friends, someone that will be surely missed. Imagine filling those shoes.

Heartache . . .

This was my description of Rick’s working life to a social agency: “As a route/sales driver he was on the road early enough to arrive at his first customer by 7:00 AM. Most customers were dry cleaners and upon arrival he singlehandedly unloaded an unpredictable variety of items: carpets and rugs averaging 100 pounds apiece; fur and leather coats (five in each hand). All items shifted while en route so he had to crawl inside a sweltering cargo bay. Several customers were located upstairs or downstairs, so he would carry these awkward and cumbersome loads up and down stairs. Rick made as many as 100 stops in a single day in all types of weather. Carpets were by far the heaviest single item of significant proportion. Hauling carpets required him to stoop, hoist the carpet onto his shoulder and carry it into the customers store. Most items for pick up were thrown haphazardly on the floor.Rick was required to crouch down, grab heavy carpets or garments, and under their added weight stand, and “sling”them onto his shoulder. He carried them to his van good-naturedly through deep snow or light snow concealing ice; against heavy traffic in urban areas, and in the dark during the short days of winter.”

Heartache . . .

My admiration for Rick has never diminished; for seventeen years he worked a “hard labor job” which often kept him on the road for eighteen hours. He performed his job with integrity, commitment, and an unwavering pride. He did something I could never do: for seventeen years, day in and day out, in blizzards, hailstorms, and black ice; in unrelenting heat, cloud bursts, and flooding; and one wild turkey flapping its way into Rick’s van, he never quit. Ever. That’s called honor.

Rick’s been transferred to a sub-acute rehab facility. Here’s where you can send him your “Get Well” card:

Mr. Richard Didrickson
Mitchell Manor West Allis
Senior Living Community
5301 W. Lincoln Avenue
West Allis WI 53219
(414) 615-7200

Heartache over and over, Heartbreak fresh in my spirit (butterflymomma2013.wordpress.com)
5 Quotes About Breakup and Heartache (quotes.answers.com)
Heartache vs. Heartbreak (strydr20.wordpress.com)

My Brother Rick (aka Dikes, Rich) Condition Post-Stroke

06/21/201306/22/2013 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 3 Comments

Last Thursday, a few minutes past noon, I called my brother Rick in Milwaukee (it had become a ritual of sorts especially while driving), and he answered in an odd tone which gave me pause. He began to complain of escalating nausea to which I urged him to see his personal physician. He failed to remember his physician or the terrible diabetic wound which almost led to amputation or his two-month in-patient hospital stay. I told him I’d call 9-1-1 and ask that he be taken to West Allis Memorial Hospital ( policy dictates patients be taken to the nearest hospital). However the paramedics discovered atrial fibrillation (fluttering heart beats) which alternately peaked and diminished and therefore paramedics informed me that they were headed to a critical cardiac unit at St. Luke’s Medical Center.

However, St. Luke’s didn’t have a bed open, so Rick was taken to Froedert Lutheran Medical Center. After tests and a CT scan the ER team began antibiotics to stave off a small area of pneumonia in his right lung. Rick remained on the general medical floor until the results of an MRI showed he’d suffered a severe ischemic stroke (an obstruction within a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain) in the occipital lobe (at the rear of the skull and is responsible for vision). On Sunday afternoon he was transported to the Stroke Unit (one of just astroke2 a few in the U.S.) where he was resting comfortably.

On Monday, June 18 Rick suffered a significant seizure which greatly diminished his short term memory and eliminated the peripheral vision on his right side. I’ve visited and talked via telephone with him this past week. The cadence of his speech has slowed, he’s practically immobile, he’s approaching clinical blindness, and finds difficulty in fundamental motor movements like holding a cup. But as he told me earlier this week, “I ain’t going to be like this forever, you know!”

I’d like to ask that anyone reading this post to consider sending him a get well card. I’m sure your sentiments would help replenish a hopeful spirit during difficult times. For those of you who send cards, thank you; for those that haven’t, please reconsider. Send your cards to:

Richard Didrickson
Froedert & Medical College of Wisconsin
5-NW Nursing Unit
9200 W. Wisconsin Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53226

What’d you say about a stroke? (optimismandme.wordpress.com)
Imaging Tests Used to Diagnose Stroke (everydayhealth.com)
Types of Strokes – Hemorrhagic and Ischemic (everydayhealth.com)

My Brother Once Said, “My Life Was Determined By Another’s Lie.”

06/21/2013 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

“A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.”

Rick willfully shouldered a self-imposed burden his entire life. Unsettled by our Dad’s violent outburst’s (routinely targeting our mother), he began to peek behind, beside, and beyond our parent’s staid alibi about their colorless and urgent courtship which usually quelled curiosities. Except for one widow that pursued, with neighborly caution, my mother’s dire dodging. “It was simple math,” he’d once said, “Simple math and the ordering of month’s to quickly calculate the truth. He was proud of his steely pursuit, wishing there was a merit badge for exposure of parental lies. “Then suddenly,” he said, “the whole enterprise soured. The recently decoded shameful and moral secret they’d disguised as hushed urgency, longing, and the mid-fifties moral compass was, in fact, his birth which occurred five months after their City Hall nuptials.

It was then, at that inconceivable denouement, that his conception was the root cause of bout after bout after bout of unbridled and disgusting epithets often followed by a round of brutish, physical taunts which, my mother learned too late, that if you retreat to the broom closet or the empty cranny next to the refrigerator, you raise your arms to protect your face like exhausted boxers stuck in a corner. Fear and submission killed my father‘s blood lust as though he’d been fed a syringe full of Ketamine. Oh, but those few and far between times when her self-respect outweighed her self-preservation, her repressed anger putrified to man-slaughter. She charged at him, disgust followed by anger followed by critical injuries helped to ignore his devastating kidney punches followed by multiple precisely aimed and explosive back-handed slaps which buckled her knees; by now, in his cold eyes she’d lost any humanity and devolved into the recipient of his fully expressed hatred for her.

My mother’s marriage, a litany of lies: loathing thinly veiled as affection; irritation disguised as intimacy; and an escalating and violent blame for Marge‘s moonless flight with their three children through thorn bush and brambles, and following her husband’s business partner who liquidated their company’s assets that afternoon. Later that evening my father received a brief call from Marge confirming that all three children were safe and in her care. And sternly warned my father that if he pursued them, she’d kill all three of them rather than spend another minute with you, then abruptly disconnected the line. It was then that my father accepted that he’d been abandoned, ruined, and penniless. My father was incapable of keeping his promises, especially when it came to monogamy whether married or single. But worse still was his continued punishment of my mother for Marge’s inconceivable disappearance into the thicket behind their home. Marge later confessed that it was his barefaced screwing of the nanny. Who, coincidently, was our mother.

Rick witnessed just one of those bloodsheds and cursed his responsible birth as cause for these vengeful and sadistic rituals. So he heaved the imaginary and backbreaking potato sack stuffed with the rubble of our mother’s self-esteem and character; up to his waist, hesitated, then at once swung the unbalanced sack up to his shoulder while tucking his short ageless frame beneath the load like a tire winch. From there he strained and distorted and drove the shifting load skyward until his swollen knees snapped open like a toy jack-in-the-box and steadied his load . . . for the rest of his natural life.

Marge Simpson ‘inspiration’ dies (bbc.co.uk)

“The Looking Glass:” A Modern Answer Besides Your Nose

04/21/201304/21/2013 ~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 4 Comments

It is with great satisfaction that I’d like to present to you my latest woodworking project aptly titled The Looking Glass.

The Looking Glass is borne from an on-going dilemma: Eyeglasses should be on hand yet out of the way and yet still be part of something grander. The Looking Glass hopes to eliminate the second most asked question “Where are my glasses?” by placing an elegant, modern and inconspicuous composition of glass and wood during daylight hours; and at night, an elegant, modern and conspicuous lighted from within composition of glass and wood. In the evening the polished glass and plexiglass quietly glow; no sound, no movement, no promises. What began as a search to stop the irritating question about eyeglasses evolved into a simple and translucent construction of glass, plexiglass, hardwood, and LED lights. I’ve researched current options for eyeglass stands and discovered an abysmal selection. The Looking Glass has hundreds of variations using simple construction. It is, in a word, radiant.