29-year-old veteran from China Spring looking for kidney match

CHINA SPRING — 25 News first introduced the Central Texas community to 29-year-veteran and father of two, Collin Mize in the Spring of 2020.

The China Spring man is in desperate need of a kidney.

It was while on his first deployment that Mize felt something was wrong. However, he couldn't even fathom his organ was failing him.

"I started having symptoms of itchy and rashy skin," Mize said during our initial interview in 2020.

After visiting the doctor, the young family who was stationed in Guam at the time was given 10 days to leave the island and get back to the United States for medical care.

After arriving, doctors confirmed the unthinkable, Mize had a rare and hereditary form of aggressive kidney disease and would need a lifesaving transplant.

"It's called FSGS, it's pretty much scaring of the kidney tissue," Mize said.

Mize saying the condition renders his kidneys useless, and full of scar tissue.

After being diagnosed, and serving six years in the military, the Navy medically retired Mize.

"It was time to go on dialysis, and there's no way I could have been active duty and been on dialysis at the same time," Mize said.

The 29-year-old father of two now spends 12 hours each day attached to a machine, receiving daily dialysis treatments.

Put on the Veteran Affair's waitlist, which could keep him idly standing by for the better part of a decade, The Mize Family has hopes the community could step forward to help.

"The list is so long because we're all waiting on deceased donors, and those deceased donors have to be, its not just anybody deceased, they have to be brain dead. Their blood still has to be pumping, and they have to be organ donors," Mize said. "They're few and far between and that's why the list keeps growing and growing."

A living donor could change their lives, and that donor could be you.

Mize is a part of a living donor swap program. The program matches donors from across the United States to recipients. Donors can live anywhere in the U.S. and still get tested to match for Mize.

The first step in becoming a donor is simple. Call the Living Donor Program Coordinator, Mr. Roby, from the Houston VAMC at (713) 794-7418. Give them Mize's full name: Collin Mize, and his date of birth: 08 Jan 1992.

By donating a kidney, the Mize Family says you'd be giving them their lives back.

"(Our Kids) miss out on school days, they miss out on sporting events, because my kidneys don't work...it is so important to me right now to get better sooner rather than later for my wife and for my kids," said Mize.

Mize and his wife, Nicole, have dreams of taking their children on camping trips, small overnight vacations and seeing family, all of which would be possible with a kidney donation.

"You have the chance of saving someone's life and turning someone's world around, and in my case, you have the chance of giving me the blessing to be the father I could be, and be the husband I could be," said Mize.