Fred Diseroad was born in 1933 in the town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. He grew up simply with his mother, father, and two older brothers. As a teenager, Fred was heavily involved in sports and led a typical, fun teenage life. Fred had dreams of becoming an architect but needed to push himself to work for it.

Fred was accepted into Penn State University in 1951 as a student in the architectural major. In his freshman year, there were 120 students in the architectural class and only 20 could graduate. 

He realized he had to outwork the students who already had a head start on him with things like art and math and such. With Fred’s work ethic and determination, he eventually graduated.

I graduated!

After college, Fred met Kay, the woman who would be my grandmother. When he met Kay though, he already had a commitment to serve in the U.S. Air Force. Fred and Kay kept their relationship alive throughout Fred’s time serving by writing letters back and forth. Over time, the two got married.

They had three children, Mark, Michele, and Meredith, my mother. To continue to live out his dreams of being an architect, Fred and a friend of his started their own architectural firm with little experience, but a lot of energy and enthusiasm. The firm took off successfully with little conflicts here and there.

Everything was going smoothly in Fred’s life. He was doing well with his business and providing for his family. Things were about to turn in a different direction in Fred and the rest of the Diseroad’s lives though.

One of Fred's Drawing's

During the Christmas season of 1988, Meredith started to feel sick. She expressed symptoms like fatigue and for some reason, the swelling of her tongue. Fred and Kay blew it off for a bit because they didn’t think it was a huge deal. Everybody feels tired sometimes and the swollen tongue could have been anything.

I don't feel good.

A few weeks after though, Fred was in the middle of an important business meeting at the Diseroad home one friday evening in the beginning of January. Kay was out of town for the weekend and Mark and Michele were living their own lives since they were both out of college.

Meredith, as much as she didn’t want to bother an important meeting, had to step in and talk to her father. Meredith’s symptoms had worsened. She had little energy, still had a swollen tongue and other issues going on with her body.

Fred immediately ended the meeting and the two drove as quickly as they could to the doctors. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They told Fred and Meredith that she had some sort of unknown illness they couldn’t put a name too.

Fred grew very concerned. No one in the family has ever had a serious health problem. It was the most out of the blue thing that could happen in Fred’s life right now.

The doctors sent them to Grand View Hospital next. Meredith grew sicker by the minute, but Fred stayed with her every second of the way comforting her. He told her his classic dad jokes to try to keep her mind off of the fact that she was very sick and didn’t know why.

As they arrived at the hospital, Fred reminded her that everything would be alright, to think positive, and to say a prayer.

After what felt like thousands of tests done and hours of impatient, anxious waiting, Fred was informed that his seventeen-year-old daughter had been diagnosed with complete kidney failure.

Fred and Kay holding Meredith as a baby.

Everything changed for the Diseroad family that day. Meredith was close to dying.

An ambulance came right away to take Meredith to Allentown Hospital. The doctors told Meredith she had two choices, she could stay on dialysis, a treatment for kidney failure, for the rest of her life, but the amount of time left she would have to live would be limited, or have a kidney transplant.

These are your options.

Immediately, Fred volunteered to give his daughter his kidney. He was not going to let Meredith live her life on a time limit and be in danger.

I volunteer!