Woodridge man donates his kidney to help former neighbor’s son

Pondering one of the most consequential decisions he would ever make, Mike Torti asked himself: How many times in his life would he have a chance to give someone else 20 more years of theirs?

For the 62-year-old Torti, the decision was a no-brainer. And on Oct. 9, he donated his kidney as part of an exchange that enabled Jacob Fill — a former neighbor whose family moved from Torti’s Elmhurst neighborhood when Fill was a toddler — to get the organ he desperately needed.

“If it weren’t for Mike, I would probably still be on dialysis waiting,” said Fill, who as a child was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, a condition where one’s kidneys develop cysts that impact their function.

Fill’s parents posted on social media that their son had lost both kidneys and was awaiting a donor. Torti’s sister-in-law saw the post and mentioned it to him in December 2023. Torti, himself a father, ached for the young man and his family.

“As a human being I felt sympathy,” said Torti, a Woodridge resident whose daughter is few years younger than the 28-year-old Fill. “As a parent, I felt empathy for Jay and Terri (Jacob’s parents).”

A longtime blood donor whose O negative blood type matches Fill’s, Torti thought to himself: “Wouldn’t it be something if I was a match?”

Torti’s wife, Jennifer, was immediately on board, but their daughter was skeptical. She worried about what would happen if her father needed that kidney some day.

Torti told her that as a living donor, he would have priority for a future transplant. That settled it.

An unexpected match

An extensive screening in early 2024, which Torti described as “the most intense physical you’ll ever undergo,” confirmed he was a match. But Fill’s doctors preferred a younger donor. So they proposed — and Torti agreed to — a paired kidney exchange, in which an individual donates a kidney on the patient’s behalf so the patient can receive a kidney from a more compatible donor.

In the past, if a living donor volunteered a kidney but was incompatible with the patient, no transplant occurred and the intended recipient remained on the wait list, said registered nurse Veronica DiCianni, living donor coordinator for Loyola University Medical Center.

A compatible paired kidney exchange offers an opportunity to find a better match or a more age/size appropriate donor, DiCianni said. “That was important for this case … You want it to be the best option for the recipient and to last as long as possible.”

The experience can have a profound emotional and spiritual impact on a donor, “especially knowing that through an exchange they are helping the person who received their kidney directly, in addition to the person they originally intended to help” while decreasing the wait time for patients on the deceased donor list, DiCianni said.

“Helping people get off dialysis improves their quality of life, extends their life, helps their families, the community, the health care system and society as a whole, so it is truly a ripple effect,” she said.

Currently about 23% of kidney transplants in the U.S. come from living donors, said DiCianni. Transplants from living donors have a 98% success rate, higher than that of a transplant from a deceased donor.

The National Kidney Donation Organization reports that a kidney from a living donor lasts twice as long as one from a deceased donor. Nationwide, about 92,000 people are on the wait list, according to the organization.

The rate of kidney transplants from living donors has steadily decreased over time, from a high of 43% in 2003 to about 23% in recent years, DiCianni said.

Potential living donors must be in good health overall, have strong enough kidney function and be acceptable both medically and psychosocially, DiCianni said.

Fortunately, Torti met the criteria.

“I never expected this was something I would do,” Torti said. “Now I’ve become this passionate advocate for kidney donation.”

However, being a donor meant exempting himself from a pact he made with some close-knit pals dubbed “kidney friends,” because they would be willing to donate a kidney to a group member if needed.

“You guys are out of luck,” he joked upon informing them of his decision.

A life-changing gift

Shocked by Torti’s selflessness, Fill said it took him a while to accept it was real. Once he did, it breathed in “some new life and new hope.”

A resident of California, Fill faced a six- to 10-year wait for a kidney. In the meantime he was working his dream job as a member of the San Francisco 49ers communications team, while spending 15 hours, three days a week, on dialysis.

He had been on dialysis just under a year when he learned about the transplant.

“I felt very blessed to have someone I didn’t know at all come forward,” he said.

The euphoria remained even after doctors told him a kidney from a younger donor would be a better match. By that point, he was confident the transplant would happen, it was just a matter of time.

He returned home three days after surgery — Torti was hospitalized for about 30 hours — and eight months later he’s made a full recovery.

“I’m honestly more fit than I was before all this,” he said. “I’m feeling about as good as I ever felt.”

Organ donors like Torti can change the course of someone’s life, Fill added.

“That’s a very powerful thing.”

As for Torti, he hopes their story increases awareness of paired exchange programs that enable donors to help not one but two patients.

“If I was healthy enough to do this and I was a key to unlocking other matches for Jacob (and didn’t go through with it), it would be like throwing that key into the ocean,” said Torti.

• For information on Loyola Medicine’s living donor programs, visit loyolamedicine.org/services/transplant-center/living-donor-programs. To sign up for the organ donor screening, see loyola.donorscreen.org.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20250614/news/suburban-man-donates-his-kidney-to-help-former-neighbors-son/