Rick has shared a health update after he was rushed to hospital on The Block.
The 63-year-old had to take a leave of absence due to a knee injury, with Tayla’s twin sister, Shannen, stepping in to help.
While he’s back in action on The Block, his physical worries aren’t over, with the builder telling New Idea he still needs a knee replacement.
“I do need a [knee] replacement,” he tells us.
“I’ll probably hold off till the end of the year and just work out a plan for what happens.
“You know, I’m not quite sure what happens after life after the Block. So we’ll just wait and see what happens.
“But yeah, I definitely need a replacement.”
Tayla jokes that he will be waiting until after the 2026 Melbourne Cup Carnival at the end of the month before having surgery.
“Yeah, definitely,” Rick agrees.
Rick, who has survived two cancer diagnoses, struggled with the punishing physical demands of The Block and got an infection in his knee.
He was forced to step back from filming for four days, with Shannen helping Tayla while their father recovered.
Rick admits that he “couldn’t wait” to get back on site and struggled to be away from the show.
“It just made me realise how important it was – the opportunity that we have, not just myself and Tayla, but all the contestants,” he tells New Idea.
“I actually missed being away from the show.”
It has always been Rick’s dream to do The Block and he was reluctant to step back, wanting to rest on the site rather than at home.
“I wanted to stay at home on the set and just sit down on site and elevate my foot,” he admits.
“But that wouldn’t have happened. I’d have ended up getting up and just working. So having to go home was probably a better idea.”
Ever the hard worker, Rick doesn’t regret pushing himself so much, explaining that he was trying to save money to employ more tradies for their landscaping.
“I didn’t want to go employing any others and we had to make do with what we had,” he tells us.
“We had 400 square metres more landscaping to do [compared to the other houses]. So, we were going to be out hundreds on landscaping compared to the others.
“I pushed along knowing quite well that I needed extra funds for the landscaping towards the end.
“So yeah, that’s possibly why I pushed through without asking for any help throughout the show.
“But we got through and we’re in one piece!”
