Bike Collector Needs Kidney

UPDATE: A website has now been launched to help get motorcycle collector and Torrington, CT businessman Mike Wallace a new kidney. It’s at mikewallacekidney.com.

TORRINGTON, CT – As a collector of vintage motorcycles, Mike Wallace is always on the lookout for new specimens to buy. The owner of Southworth’s Wayside Furniture owns approximately 50 bikes, and many of them are slotted between the cartons of recent deliveries locked in the warehouse behind the store at 3261 Winsted Road.

Unfortunately, he’s only been able to actually ride a motorcycle two or three times this year due to repeated hospitalizations that now have him searching for something harder to get than almost any old bike – a new kidney.

Mike Wallace

Wallace recently went on the kidney donor list at Yale-New Haven Hospital. On Friday, his father, Jack Wallace, launched a campaign on social media to get Mike a new kidney to replace his failing ones.  “He cannot be on dialysis forever and things can change fast,” the elder Wallace said Saturday.

The younger Wallace was diagnosed with kidney disease a dozen years ago at age 40. He lived a fairly normal life for 10 years. “They kept it at bay with different methods,” he said. “It’s a downhill decline as far as your kidneys working. You don’t have the energy. It drags your body down.”

A little more than 2½ years ago, Wallace was forced to go on peritoneal dialysis; being hooked to a machine in his home from midnight to 9:15 a.m. every day. In December, he was hospitalized at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital for three days with peritonitis. In July, he was hospitalized for six days with pancreatitis. In August, he went back in for three days to have his gall bladder removed.

“When you have kidney disease, you don’t know what normal is. You have good days and bad days,” he said while sitting in a recliner inside his store. He expressed optimism that his kidney challenge can be solved. “It’s just my personality. You can take this two different ways – ‘doom and gloom’ or ‘there’s a light somewhere.’” he said.

His father is taking a more somber approach. “We need to expedite the process. This is by far the most important project I will ever undertake,” he said, adding that serving as his son’s advocate eclipses the many years he spent volunteering with the Torringford Volunteer Fire Department, Harwinton Fire Police and Harwinton Ambulance Association.

He termed his son’s situation as “critical. This could south really quickly.”

Anyone interested in donating a kidney may call the Yale-New Haven Hospital Donor Hotline at 866-925-3897. Calls are confidential. The initial screening involves a questionnaire. Bloods tests will follow. Kidney donations are anonymous and there’s no cost to the donor.

Mike Wallace, who grew up in Harwinton, CT and is a 1982 graduate of Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington, CT is hopeful someone will step up. “This is so difficult for me to ask for something as big as this. I’m very independent. Anyone who donates an organ is a hero,” he said.

He’s also hopeful of getting back on a motorcycle as this riding season has been exceedingly frustrating for him. “It’s terrible. All my plans went out the window,” he said.