With a Long Island family’s life-changing diagnosis, they seek help.
Bill Moritz and his wife Madeline Moritz are in the middle of a deadly battle. Bill Moritz needs a new kidney and his wife was recently diagnosed with leukemia.
In March 2020, Bill Moritz was diagnosed with kidney failure. He had been diagnosed with kidney disease ten years before him and had been closely monitored, by which point his illness had gotten out of hand.
“My kidney levels dropped to such a level that it became clear that I needed some kind of help, a transplant,” he says.
As well as the stresses of life, his wife Madeline Mortise has been on the front lines of the pandemic, working as a care home administrator at work and now working from home.
“The adrenaline kicks in and you just have to find a way to make sense of it. And it doesn’t last forever, but we got through it. He was great and didn’t catch COVID.”
“If it wasn’t for Madeleine…I don’t think I would be here,” says Bill Mortise.
During this time, Madeline Mortiz was screened to be a matching donor for her husband. She turned out to be her.
But the couple was blindsided when Madeline Moritz was diagnosed with cancer after seeing a regular doctor in May of this year. Her blood tests showed her white blood cells were off. , her doctor diagnosed her with leukemia.
Bill Moritz needs a kidney and Madeline Moritz needs a stem cell transplant.
After eight weeks of chemotherapy, Madeline Moritz is home and spending time in her favorite place, the garden.
The couple, who have known each other since high school, have three children, and are lifelong Long Islanders, are looking for someone to help them get to the front.
“Like I said, we’re just looking for a living donor,” says Madeline Moritz.