There is a 16-year-old boy in our community who needs our help.

This time last year he was playing soccer, running track and hanging with his friends. Now he has kidney failure and gets dialysis three days a week.

It’s a traumatic experience for his parents but they’re using it to try to help other children.

The living donor number is (585) 275-5875.
If you register, share Austin’s name and you match someone and donate, it moves Austin up the donor list.

“Come on Austin! Dig it!” Suzanne Tordai yelled at the start of her son’s 100 meter race.

The video she recorded of Austin was last year. Today he’s in a race for his life. He spends four hours a day, three days a week getting dialysis at Strong Memorial Hospital.

“Well, it’s annoying to say the least to have to wake up early in the morning, come here and get stuck in this uncomfortable bed for four hours,” Austin said from his hospital bed Friday while getting his third dialysis treatment this week.

The danger is when treatment ends, because it can spike his heart rate and blood pressure.

Last month he collapsed in his father’s arms.

“It’s caused a lot of PTSD now. I hate coming here,” Laszlo Tordai said. “I’ve told her that being here for four hours and always guessing how the treatment is going to end wondering if he’ll have ill effects or not — it causes a ton of anxiety and a lot of stress.”
  
No one knows how this happened to Austin, although one theory is that he had undetected kidney failure and when he got his wisdom teeth pulled in September the anesthesia and Advil triggered a full failure.

His parents say he went from being in school, to being fatigued to near cardiac failure in a matter of days.

Austin and his parents are advocating that children and teens regularly be tested for kidney function.
They’re also advocating for a transplant.

“We have a food train set up so people are dropping food off at our house,” his mom Suzanne said. “But we just need a kidney for him so we can get back to normal life.”

“We were, I wouldn’t say oblivious, but this experience has humbled us,” Laszlo said. “No one wants to see their kid in this condition. It’s heartbreaking.”

In order for Austin to stay on the donor list he has to keep his weight up. He’s on a delicate diet of 3,500 calories a day, and it has to be specific fresh food. It’s doubled his parents’ grocery bill.

March is Kidney Disease Awareness Month. One deceased donor can save the lives of up to eight people.

Click here to reach the New York State organ donor registry.