For Bart and Cheryl Dickins, it was a typical October Wednesday night.
Longtime Ducks fans since the club arrived in Orange County in the early 1990s, the couple had been looking forward to tuning into Opening Night as their team hosted the Seattle Kraken, and in particular the traditional pregame festivities at center ice.
In past years, the two have watched fondly as Anaheim's team welcomed 21st Ducks to the family, introducing them to soldout crowds alongside the players and highlighting their life's challenges and accomplishments.
This year though, that joy took on a special new meaning, when Dickins connected to 21st Duck Ethan Baroldi in a way no one else could.
"Cheryl!" Bart called out from the other room. "You have to come see this!"
21st Duck, Longtime Fan Form Special Bond Over Unique Medical Journeys
A lifelong Southern California native, Cheryl Dickins has persevered through a complicated medical journey. As a child in the 1950s, she was admitted to Children Hospital Los Angeles for what doctors suspected was bacterial endocarditis, an inflammation of lining in the heart.
But when surgery resolving that issue did not eliminate the symptoms, more concern kicked in. Further investigation revealed Dickins had Tetralogy of Fallot, a rare condition caused by a combination of four heart defects present at birth.
With medicine at that time still years from the breakthroughs in treatment available today, doctors did what they could in the interim, first trying an ultimately unsuccessful procedure to relieve pressure before deciding Dickins would need to wait for an experimental surgery still on the horizon.
The wait, in short, was incredibly difficult. Dickins recalls horrific spells where she could not catch her breath without squatting down in a precise position. Her lips, nails and skin would turn blue, a phenomenon called "blue baby" at the time.
"I know I did not have a regular childhood," Dickins said. "My goal was always to just do things normal kids could do."
Dickins could not attend regular school, play sports or participate in extracurricular programs. Instead, her parents enrolled in a specially designed school catered to students with unique medical needs. As a sixth-grader there, Dickins met a friend, Charlie, with a similar heart condition. They quickly became very close, bonding over the traumas and worries only the other could truly understand, with both looking forward to upcoming surgeries that could just maybe help change their lives.
"My doctors were checking on me constantly, but I was heading downhill," Dickins recalled. "In fact my dad, he was not a large man, but he had to pull me out of the school because I couldn't even keep up with that. I had an at-home teacher, and my dad would just start carrying me on his back, piggy-back style, because I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the energy."
After eight years of waiting, the clock had run out. Doctors told Dickins' parents her survival rate was honestly questionable. It was time to try the procedure that would eventually change her life.
Charlie was scheduled to go in first though for his own surgery, and a tragic outcome would only make Dickins' trying situation so much worse. A hole in Charlie's heart that had been previously patched was starting to leak. He died on the operating table.
Just 12 years old, Dickins was obviously overcome with emotion. Here she was scheduled to have a highly complicated procedure within the same walls where her dear friend just passed. But there was little time to wait. Somehow, the pre-teen girl faced those fears and underwent what is now known as open heart surgery, becoming one of the first Americans to survive the breakthrough medical operation.
Now Dickins knew that she too had previously had a hole in heart but took comfort when her parents told her doctors had found another way to close it, rather than a patch like her friend. The mental security of knowing her situation was different helped carry her through the overwhelming doubt of whether next week or next year would come.
Over time, she grew stronger, healthier and more confident. She went to college, started a career, got married, became a mother and lived her life outside of the confines of a hospital.
Only years and years later, when meeting with her cardiologist for an Echocardiogram, did she learn her parents had told a little white lie to help their incredibly brave daughter inch further down the path.
"The technician performing the test said, 'Look, I can see the patch over the whole in your heart,'" Dickins remembered. "To which I said, 'No, sorry, not me.' And so he showed it to me and that was a shocker (laughs). I called my mom and she said, 'We made a decision not to tell you because of Charlie.'"
Sixty-three years later, that patch is still going strong. So, when Dickins learned about Baroldi and his story, she wanted to reach out and offer any support she could, quickly contacting her ticket representative and asking to be put in contact.
Within a few weeks, she and Bart met the Baroldi family before another Ducks game at Honda Center, a moment Dickins said brought her incredible pride and joy.
"It brought tears to my eyes," Dickins said. "After seeing him as the 21st Duck on the ice, it was so cool to meet him. I'm so very proud of him."
For Baroldi's mother, Melissa, listening to Dickins' stories and memories was cathartic in a way, validating of her own family's challenges and a glimpse of how different life can be now with modern medicine.
"To listen to her stories where she had to go to a different school and the loss of her friends, we didn't have those experiences because Ethan was so little," Melissa said. "But he did turn blue. He did have fainting spells.
"It's amazing to relive that through her stories and hear about the medical technology at the time. Fast forward all these years and it was just like, 'Oh hey, he has this condition. We're going to fix it this way. Call it a day.' He didn't have to wait until 12 or 13 to have the full repair... To see her and that she's here, she's lived all the years and done such wonderful things, I know things will continue for Ethan by the grace of God like they were for her. It makes me so happy to know he's going to be okay because she is a wonderful example of everything turning out right."
For Dickins, those medical advances are nowhere more evident than the bright energy that Ethan lives his life with every day.
"He is such an amazing young man, and he looks so wonderful," Dickins beamed. "He looks so healthy and there's a vibrancy to him. Oh my gosh, I just wish him the best. I think he's going to go very far."
"It was always our thing," Melissa said. "If you come see him, you smile and think positive...Don't let this define you. Yeah, it defined you for a small part of your life but now take the gift you've been given and go with it.
"We have been blessed time and time again. We've had some hiccups along the way, but through it all we've stayed strong so that he can stay strong."
But even beyond the wisdom and strength Dickins could offer, the Baroldi family was most struck by her generosity, a selfless willingness to lend a hand of support in any way possible.
"She just radiated strength, hope and positive energy," Melissa said. "She came in and just hugged him and said how wonderful he looked, how she wanted to be part of his journey. How she wants to watch him play hockey and have that positive presence. It just seemed like when she walked in they were bonded like family.
"That gave me even more hope that things are going to continue to go well...I just feel like an example like that for him will have such a positive impact on his life."
Since then, Dickins has become Baroldi's #1 fan, a regular attendee of his games with the Jr. Ducks and an eager mentor for years to come.
"We're so grateful because my husband and I can say, 'Oh, this is what happened to you,' Melissa said.
"But now he can have somebody if he has different questions maybe about what it was like in the hospital or what it was like after surgery, he can talk to her directly and reassure her more than anyone could.
"We just got two new members of our family."
