Fred Negrete's Medical Fund

Fred Negrete is my dad, and my dad is a steelworker. He has been retired since 1996 after 30 years in the mills, but he is always going to be a steelworker. What does that mean? It means that he’s proud, honest and genuine. It means that he’s been through some of the toughest working environments that people have to go through. It means that he has been through tough times, and even tougher situations. It means that he is as blue collar as it gets and works as hard as anyone. He went to work at the mills, like his father before him, at the age of 19. Something that most people my age can’t imagine nowadays. But all that could not prepare him for the last three years.

As a young man, he blew out his left knee and had total reconstruction of his knee. Bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this. Modern medicine at the time is nowhere like it is now and the knee surgery that he had at the time just barely put him back together. He would have knee problems for the rest of his life.

Fast forward to 2007. He’s now been retired for over 10 years and finally gets his knee looked at and replaced. No big deal, people do it every day all over the world. A few months later, he’s back to his old self and now his right hip hurts because he’s been walking odd for the last 40 years of his life and it wore down that right hip. So, in 2008, he now has an artificial right hip as well a left knee.

It was shortly after that he was diagnosed with NASH (Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease) a type of cirrhosis. So, he now has to take much better care of himself, not just because of that disease, the two artificial joints, but now he was diagnosed with diabetes as well. The combination of the liver disease and the diabetes caused a multitude of other issues that he wasn’t ready to deal with. He became tired all the time and very surly. Mundane tasks around the house that he used to do became much more difficult. The things that he used to enjoy like mowing the lawn, weeding my mom’s flower garden or working out at the gym were all day affairs because of the liver disease. But life went on.

Now, comes the day that changed my entire family’s life. March 29, 2014. My dad complained of a pain in his knee and had a very high fever.  He gets rushed to the hospital where he was in septic shock and almost lost his life. After several tests and several powerful drugs they determined that he had MRSA in his blood. Somehow, they determined that the MRSA infection settled in the replacement knee. They had to transfer him to Rush Hospital in Chicago for knee removal in June 2014 and inserted an antibiotic spacer. This spacer did not allow him to walk or give him much movement. He had this spacer in for almost 4 months until his blood work came back clean and he was able to have another replacement knee in September 2014. During this whole process, he was given powerful antibiotics, both oral and through IV.

Due to the severity of the infection, his kidneys failed, and he had to be put on dialysis. Once he finally went home, he was still unable to get down the stairs and into a vehicle on his own. He had to be transported to dialysis via ambulance 3 times a week. 

This whole process happened again in August, 2015. The MRSA once again raised its ugly head and hit his artificial right hip. Again, he received very powerful antibiotics and still having to deal with dialysis, being diabetic and liver cirrhosis.  A hip revision (out with the old and in with the new) had to be done in Sept 2015.

Throughout this time, not only had he been dealing with the constant threat of an infection from simple things that you and I take for granted such as a paper cut, but he’s had veins in all places of the body that became enlarged and could burst. They are called Esophageal and Rectal Varices.  Think of a water balloon that you squeeze until it bursts in your hand. That’s what he had, several times. Several of them were in his throat. The once strong powerful voice that put the fear of God into my brother, my sister, and I was now that of a stranger. All while this is going on, he’s trying to get his name onto the transplant list for a new liver and kidney.
He was finally put on the transplant list in May 2016. Six weeks later, on June 6th he was blessed to receive a liver and June 9th a new kidney (God Bless the Donor). I remember getting the call from my mom. I was in a hotel room in Chattanooga for work when I got the call at 1:30 am. There’s only one other reason that my mom would call me like that and that was the only thing I could imagine. Fortunately the liver and kidney surgeries went well and are functioning. 

However, infection from the surgery hit his lungs and pneumonia was the result. Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) came shortly thereafter because of the pneumonia and caused severe damage to his lungs.  He was in Intensive Care from June 9th thru July 31st of 2016. It was during this time that he was almost lost to us again. My mom was told by the doctors to make whatever phone calls she needed to make and to get family here. He was placed into a RotoProne Bed that strapped him down and turned him over in order to release the pressure on his lungs. Since then, he has been in and out of the hospital for the ARDS and has only been home for about a month.


In Sept 2016, he was home for a couple weeks; however, he fell and broke his shoulder and once again came down with pneumonia. He was in the hospital from September 19th thru December 22.  He returned home on December 22, 2016 for Christmas only to return to hospital on January 1, 2017.  He was in Intensive Care thru February 20th then moved to Rehab to build up his strength.

We’re asking for help. Every single step of this journey has cost our family something; lost wages, IV bags, prescriptions, ambulance rides, rehab bills, deductibles, hospital beds, and everything in between. Our loving neighbors and family are organizing an event for him. My father has done so much for the community at large. He has become well-known throughout the Region as a harbinger of goodwill and faith. He cooked dinners for the entire high school football team when my brother and I were active in sports. He continued it later for my niece when she was playing basketball. His concern for his town went so far as to drive him to run for a school board official. He has been a pillar of his community and has given as much as he can. I hope that we all can give to help him.

Please, anything you can give is extremely appreciated to help an old steelworker.

A hopeful family,
The Negretes