Local Mail Carrier Kidney Condition Worsened; Seeks Transplant

WEST HEMPSTEAD, NY — The condition has worsened for a longtime postal carrier from West Hempstead. Eric Peluso, as we told you in August, has been suffering from chronic kidney disease for two decades.

Since our last conversation, Peluso was hospitalized and started a three-day-a-week regimen of dialysis.

His active work ethic may have enabled a longer time before a deteriorating condition, his wife Michele speculates.

While he'll return to work for the U.S. Postal Service in between his three-hour dialysis appointments in the new year, the hope is to secure a kidney via transplant.

"He's been on the donor list since June," Michele Peluso says. "We've been trying our very best to find a live donor."

The recovery time is quicker and the kidney from a living donor typically will last longer, she says.

Hoping to find the person and kidney within the community, Eric handed out thousands of flyers.

"Unfortunately, he didn't get any responses," she says.

Eric, 39, doesn't have viable donors in his family, who are either too old or no longer alive.

Despite what he's had thrown at him, Michele says he's a battler.

"He doesn't give up. He's at a very rough stage right now in his life," she says. "He doesn't let his illness define him."

The Pelusos are using all resources to get the word out about his situation and urgent need for a kidney, because "dialysis is good for the time being to help filter out the toxins in the body," Michele says. "But, on long term, it's not good."

But for Michele and Eric, a match would be made to prolong his life.

"We're just looking for, as they say, Christmas is a magical holiday," she says. "We're just hoping and praying for that miracle and his dreams [to] come true. Then you start the new year off with a new kidney and a start from scratch. I want that for him."

To find out about donating a kidney, you can call the NYU Langone Live Donor Hotline at 212-263-3621.