Interview with Dirk Chase Eldredge
Dirk Eldredge was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has always been athletically active. He graduated Cum Laude from the University of Southern California, which he attended on a football scholarship. To demonstrate his resiliency to himself and his family, following his first open-heart operation in 1976 he became a certified SCUBA diver and enjoyed diving for over twenty years. Dirk combines writing and speaking with entrepreneurship. He spent over fifty years in such businesses as computer marketing with I.B.M., retail outlet ownership, startup and sale of a successful wholesale travel business, and a ten-year bank directorship. He served Ronald Reagan as Southern California Co-Chairman in his initial gubernatorial campaign, returning to I.B.M. after the campaign. Eldredge has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, L.A. Today, and Court TV. He was also featured in a one-hour, coast-to-coast special on Canadian TV on Canada’s drug problem. He is the author of three books including the recently published “You’ve Gotta Fight Back!” Today, Dirk and Donna, his wife of more than 50 years, live in Long Beach, California. Tyler: Welcome, Dirk. I love the positive title of your book. To begin, will you tell us a little of what made you decide to write “You’ve Gotta Fight Back!”?
The title was inspired by a dear friend’s phone call one night. He opened the conversation by stating matter-of-factly: “ I called to tell you I’m going to die soon.” After I regained my equilibrium I asked him what he was going to do to fight his stomach cancer. He said he was just going to organize his affairs to make sure his wife would have the smoothest possible segue into widowhood. He had great confidence in his doctor, and if she thought he was going to die, he accepted her prognosis. I responded, half in anger: “You’ve gotta fight back; you can’t just roll over like that!” He disagreed, and true to his word, died three months later. Although he inspired the title of the book, his story is not included because he left no legacy of creative coping. He simply died. Tyler: I understand you’ve had eight major surgeries including two open-heart operations. Why were so many surgeries necessary, and what kept you going on during this time? Dirk: Yes, I have a very thick medical file. I don’t consider my medical adventures as heroic achievements. I’m just a guy whose flawed life-style of stress, smoking too much, and eating the wrong things, combined with some unfortunate inherited genes, predisposed me to heart and digestive problems. My mother died at 59 from heart problems. As to what kept me going, it’s called necessity. I had a wife and two kids to support and made the mistake of being born poor. Tyler: “You’ve Gotta Fight Back” is not really autobiographical but contains thirteen profiles of people’s medical adventures. What first made you decide to include the stories of so many people? Dirk: One of the human race’s most appealing qualities to me is variety. Wanting to include as much of it as possible in a modest-sized book, I chose the participants, who ran the age gamut from the 40s to the late 70s, and the medical spectrum from cancer to quadriplegia, carefully. The book has great variety in the stories I found, and they fit comfortably into 270 pages. Tyler: What criteria did you use to determine if a story should be included? Were there stories that you decided not to include? How did you settle on thirteen profiles? Dirk: My main criteria was that each story contain substantial innovation with broad applicability to readers. Tyler: I understand everyone profiled in the book left behind life-altering effects upon people as a result of their illnesses. Will you give us some examples? Dirk: One of the most heart-warming stories is about a very successful developer seriously injured in an equestrian accident. He was told he would never walk again. Well, he did, but only because of an indomitable fighting spirit and nearly super-human effort in his physical therapy. Not only did he walk, but over the next 20 years, through a special fund he established and fed annually with a large fund raising event, he has helped dozens of others with spinal cord injuries continue with physical therapy after their insurance funds ran out before they had reached what their doctors felt was their full recovery potential. Another example is the lady who died after a six-month battle with cancer. During her illness she wrote personal letters to 30 dear friends thanking them for what they had added to her life and reminiscing about the great times they had together. She told her daughter to mail them the day she passed. We can only imagine the loving impact these letters had on the recipients and the warm sense of closure they provided the writer. Tyler: Will you tell us briefly about one of the profiled people who died? Dirk: One of those who didn’t make it was a beloved friend of mine whose prostate cancer got ahead of him and took his life after a six-year fight. He and his wife, 20 years his junior, wrung out every possible medical approach before the realization hit them that he wasn’t going to make it. They then became very concerned about their 16 year-old son. They did as many fun, broadening things together as possible to insure that his memories of his dad would be upbeat and positive. They took copious quantities of pictures and the wife arranged them into well-organized, clearly labeled albums so that she and their son would be able to relive the adventures after his dad was gone. To insure they too would have something positive to hang on to after his death, their three adult children took separate trips with their dad while he was still strong enough to enjoy it. He was active and involved with life until the very end. He and I attended a Friday morning breakfast group we belonged to together, and he died the following Monday. No one got more out of a shortened life than he. He didn’t quit on life; it quit on him. Tyler: What would you consider one of the most successful or happy-ending stories of the book? Dirk: From a personal perspective, the story in the book with the happiest ending was when our son got clean and sober after battling drug and alcohol addiction for more than a decade. It ruined his marriage, threatened great harm to his relationships with his three children, and eventually cost him his job. A few years after a failed 30-day attempt at rehabilitation, he was confronted by four close friends who convinced him to try rehab again. He went in for 60 days and came out a changed man. He has now enjoyed more than five years of clean sobriety, remarried and is an excellent father, husband and son. He went back to school and achieved a certificate in drug and alcohol counseling, changed careers and now makes a good living conducting formal, professional interventions to convince other individuals that, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, and professionally conducted rehabilitation, they can enjoy the same rebirth he has. Tyler: In your book you mention the “triumvirate of happiness.” Would you explain what you mean by that term? Dirk: Except for the name, I can’t claim authorship of it, but it appeared during my research. What I call The triumvirate of happiness is: “Something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.” Tyler: Dirk, what do you hope your readers will most appreciate or learn as a result of reading “You’ve Gotta Fight Back”? Dirk: The urgent need for a stricken person to take charge of their own treatment and recovery. We all must be our own advocate; you can’t delegate that function. We all need competent, well-trained medical help, and today we have an additional source of help that’s new: The Internet. With today’s rapid-fire changes in medical technology, we can’t just assume that our doctors know about all the latest developments. The book relates several instances where patients have contributed constructive suggestions to help in their own treatment. This not only raises the patient’s morale, but can help produce a positive outcome. Tyler: Dirk, more and more people are turning to alternative forms of medicine? Was that the case with any of the people mentioned in “You’ve Gotta Fight Back!”? Can you give us an example where the patient was actively involved in determining his or her own treatment? Dirk: Yes. A very strong-minded lady with breast cancer grew desperate and went to Mexico for an alternative medicine treatment. She came home early and self-medicated with the treatment she had received in Mexico. She developed a serious blood infection and nearly died. The infection caused her to run a temperature that sometimes exceeded 104 degrees. In an American hospital she recovered from the infection, and her cancer subsequently went into remission. She is still in remission and one doctor has opined that the super-high temperature she endured may have led to her remission. No one knows for sure. Tyler: You mentioned doing research on the Internet a moment ago—do you have any suggestions for how a person can determine what information is reliable, especially when they feel their doctor may be wrong, or are there any guidelines for receiving a second opinion? Dirk: Second opinions are always a good idea when dealing with any serious medical situation. They never offend good physicians; in fact they endorse the idea. As for the reliability of Internet information, that’s an excellent question. I don’t recommend substituting a patient’s judgment for that of a trusted physician. If you don’t have confidence in your doctor, both parties are better of if you go elsewhere. The use of the Internet is simply to insure that no new possibility gets ignored because the idea was never presented to your doctor. If it’s a sound idea your physician will pursue it; if it’s not good medical practice they will tell you so. If you disagree, get another opinion. In my opinion, medicine is much more an art that a science. That’s why they call it “the practice of medicine.” Tyler: Dirk, you mentioned at the beginning of the interview your friend who died without fighting. Now that you have written this book, if he were alive today and told you he was dying, would you tell him anything different from what you told him then? Dirk: Yes. I’d tell him to read this book! Tyler: Dirk, “You’ve Gotta Fight Back” is not your first book. Will you tell us about your past writings? Dirk: My first book was “Ending the War on Drugs—A Solution For America.” This was followed by “Crowded Land Of Liberty—Solving America’s Immigration Crisis.” Both books were about seriously mishandled public policy issues and both made positive suggestions for improvement based on years of research. Tyler: Thank you, Dirk, for joining me today. Before we end the interview, will you tell our readers about your website and what additional information they may find there about “You’ve Gotta Fight Back!: Winning with Serious Illness, Injury or Disability”? Dirk: All three of my books are reviewed on my web site: www.BooksbyDirk.com Tyler: Thank you for the interview today, Dirk. I hope “You’ve Gotta Fight Back” inspires many people. |
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