By Dan Lalande
“I was a very conflicted young man,” admits Derick Fage, who, as he’s evolved, has benefited immeasurably from the daunting practice of honesty. “I loved being around people—but at the same time, I had to isolate myself.” Two Dericks, then, at war. The first started off as an imaginative, energetic child who loved to steal the spotlight at family gatherings. He grew to become one of Ottawa’s most appreciable media personalities, the face of Rogers TV Ottawa’s Daytime for almost a quarter century. His alter ego was startlingly different. Born with a troublesome medical condition—chronic fecal incontinence—its jack-in-the-box nature limited all aspect of his life.
Most of the time, Derick The First had the upper hand. He played competitive sports, joined juvenile theatre companies and helped Fisher Park High School become an improv powerhouse. But Derick The Second was there too, bringing on the “accidents,” the embarrassment, the bullying. He found refuge in his ever-supportive family. He even joined the family business, training clients on accounting software and performing administrative and reception duties at his father’s firm.
But Derick the jack-of-all-office trades longed to get back to the stage, which had served as both a vessel for histrionic talents and a constructive form of self-denial: “Dealing with shame the way I was, I really missed the thrill and relief of getting to be a person other than myself.” His prayers were answered when community television went looking for a new co-host for its flagship show, a chat-based forum for local heroes and charities. “I remember thinking ‘There’s the perfect job for a guy with my condition: live TV!’” he jokes. With a mere three days before the audition, the apprehensive but undaunted Derick taped a mock interview. In no time, the low-key tech support-administrator became the high-energy TV journalist-producer.
“The moment I started doing the show,” says Derick, “I fell in love with it. It was a steep learning curve but all of the anxiety and the bullying I went through was a blessing in disguise. It made me a resilient, self-motivated person.” With each succeeding interview, Derick neared Morning Show mastery. His game graduated to the top rung when T.L. Rader, a professional dancer and aspiring presenter who, like Derick, was big on taking chances, became his co-host. “Our five years together were the heyday of that program,” he reflects. They dressed up in theme-day costumes, tried their hands at various stunts, and raised millions of dollars for worthy causes by going above and beyond their ambassadorial duties.
Derick was in such a groove, he was even inspired to come out about his condition—live on air.
“We had the president of the Canadian Continence Foundation (CCF) on, with whom I casually shared my problems in the green room. ‘You have to mention it over the course of our conversation!’ she insisted. ‘People need to hear it!’” Ends up Derick needed to hear himself fess up, too: to hear himself shed the angst and the shame and the misadventures that had been pulling the secret pulleys of his life for too long.
Derick’s commitment to transparency did what up until then he had thought impossible: it made him whole. Derick the First and Derick The Second became just Derick: Derick the Ted Talk presence who helps fellow sufferers cope; Derick the CCF spokesperson who chancily travels the world as the “face of feces” (as he puts it); Derick the happy, coping, liberated person.
Also the Derick who, after T.L. Rader returned to the world of dance, accepted an offer to co-front Breakfast Television Montreal, Rogers’ four-year foray into Quebec. While he knew the city-to-city commute and the job’s longer hours would test both his on-air skills and his health, he underestimated how much it might also test the woman who had always loved him unconditionally—his wife Monika—and his equally supportive children.
When Rogers decided it had had a bellyful of Breakfast, Derick reclaimed Daytime, this time working solo. Over the course of the show’s final years, he continued to educate the public about the rigors of leading an exigent existence.
“My number one piece of advice to anyone struggling with a condition like mine is to not isolate yourself,” he offers with the friendly frankness that defines him. “Your life might continue to be difficult, but the ultimate complication is robbing yourself, and others, of you.”
Derick certainly has no intention of shortchanging either in the future, a future that holds an as-yet-confirmed opportunity to keep serving the community he so loves and that loves him back, body and soul.
