STREATOR – A 19-year-old Illinois Valley Community College ag student is asking for help finding a kidney. A series of medical challenges has reduced Lance Mortiz’s kidney function to 10-12 percent. Doctors have closely monitored his kidney function since he was 8 and he underwent renal bypass surgery to restore blood flow to one kidney. At that time, the other functioned just well enough to keep him alive. Moritz is currently doing home dialysis, but is on the national transplant list. About 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting kidney transplants, and some 23,000 transplants were performed in 2020.
