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The past 10 months have been an emotional roller coaster for the Colantonio family.

Now, they’re playing a waiting game, hoping their youngest daughter will follow in her sister’s footsteps in beating a life-threatening illness.

Back in August, just as she moved into her dorm for her sophomore year at Stonehill College, Nicole Colantonio, 19, was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Then in January, younger daughter Katelyn, 14, was diagnosed with kidney failure

“Are you serious,” Jim Colantonio recalled telling the doctors. “It can’t be true. She’s 14. How can she have kidney failure.”

Jim Colantonio and his wife Janet spent the month of January in hospitals.

“We used to get Kate set up on her dialysis at Children’s and then walk over to Dana-Farber and get Nicole set up on her chemotherapy,” Jim Colantonio said. “It was like a bad dream.”

Things were getting better for the Colantonios in January. Nicole was pronounced cancer-free, and tests were showing that Jim was a potential kidney donor for his daughter. They even had a date set for the operation, July 26, so Katelyn could recover in time to start her freshman year at Braintree High School.

Those plans were put on hold a week-and-a-half ago, when a test found Jim had a heart ventricle defect that ruled him out as a donor.

“We were convinced my husband was the donor,” Janice Colantonio said. “It was like having the rug pulled out from under us. We thought we were out of the nightmare.”

Added Katelyn, “It’s like we’re starting from the beginning again.”

Both Janice and Nicole have type A blood, and could not be donors.

For now, Katelyn spends three days a week undergoing dialysis while awaiting a new kidney and living under tight restrictions. She can only drink a liter of fluid a day, and can’t shower or get wet due to a port in her chest. A tennis player since she was 4, Katelyn can’t play sports.

“The worst is the food restriction,” Katelyn said.

Nicole and family members are pitching in to help get Katelyn back and forth for her treatments.

Despite her treatment, Katelyn been able to keep up her studies and is honor roll student.

“She’s positive, she still goes out with her friends,” her mother said.

While Katelyn is on the list for a kidney transplant from a cadaver, the family is hoping to find a living donor.

Janice Colantonio said the average life of a kidney taken from a cadaver is 10 years, while one from a living donor can be 25 or more years.

“We hope to have her have this surgery once in her life,” she said.

The family is seeking people to volunteer to be tested as a possible donor. Nicole Colantonio has created a Facebook page to publicize her sister’s situation, and has also reached out to the people who supported her during her illness with a posting on her Carepage.

“I love my sister above all,” Nicole wrote. “I would do anything to see her well again.”

Janice Colantonio said that people have already started reaching out to the family, for which they are grateful.

An ideal donor would be between 21 and 65 years of age with type O blood, either positive of negative.

Anyone interested in being tested as a donor can e-mail the family at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The family’s medical insurance will cover transplant costs.

The family said they feel lucky to live so close to top medical centers for their daughters’ treatment.

“We’re looking forward to being on the other side of this,” Janice Colantonio said.

Jim Colantonio said the past year has given the family a new motto.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said.

Fred Hanson may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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People on dialysis have enough problems without having to worry about heart attacks. But it seems that the nation’s leading supplier of dialysis products (mostly through its own dialysis centers) may be causing untold number of dialysis patients to have heart attacks and other cardiac problems.

Fresenius Medical Care creates two products for use in dialysis—GranuFlo (a dry acid dissolution system) and NaturaLyte (the liquid version). Patients who need dialysis have problems with kidney function. One of the side effects of kidney problems is that the body builds up acid in the bloodstream. To treat this, physicians often prescribe bicarbonate. If you remember your high school chemistry (I didn’t), bicarbonate can neutralize acid.

The problem with GranuFlo and NaturaLyte is that some of the ingredients can be converted by the body into bicarbonate. If the physician doesn’t know that, then the patient can receive a double-dose of bicarbonate. Too much bicarbonate can cause cardiac problems, like heart attacks.

Fresenius is the first to admit that this is a problem. Well, they are the first to admit to themselves that it is a problem. The company sent an internal, confidential memo to doctors at its own dialysis centers in November, 2011. It wasn’t until the FDA got ahold of the memo, received from an anonymous source, almost five months later, that Fresenius warned all of the other dialysis centers who use GranuFlo and NaturaLyte.

Lest you think that the warning weren’t important, Fresenius acknowledges that, in 2010, there were 941 patients who had heart attacks at Fresenius dialysis clinics. This says nothing of the number of patients in non-Fresenius clinics who suffered the same fate. Fresenius could have informed other doctors at those other clinics that there was a GranuFlo and heart attacks might be related (or, even if they weren’t 100% sure, a potential problem). That’s what you do when you want to be safe. It’s not what you do when you want to make a quick buck, and place profits over people.

For more information on GranuFlo and NaturaLyte heart attack injuries, see our main GranuFlo and NaturaLyte Dialysis Injury webpage. If you want to know if you have a NaturaLyte or GranuFlo heart attack lawsuit, contact our lawyers at 1.800.553.8082, or online for a free consultation.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky.—University Medical Foundation Inc., a non-profit organization established to benefit the University of Louisville School of Medicine, is entering into a joint venture with American Renal Associates to form a new organization for providing kidney dialysis services to the people of the Louisville region.

University Kidney Center LLC began operations July 1, and is conducting business as the University of Louisville Renal Dialysis Center.

“Our goal always will be to provide the very best quality care possible,” said Eleanor Lederer, MD, chief of nephrology at the University of Louisville. “This partnership allows us to continue to provide that high quality care, maintain our commitment to patients in the downtown area, and provide those services in modern facilities with additional amenities such as individual televisions and internet access.”

UMF will hold 30 percent equity in the new joint venture.

“These funds will provide resources for support of the major missions of the medical school – research into the causes and treatment of kidney diseases,” Lederer said. “The partnership guarantees our trainees access to dialysis patients, which is a critical component of our teaching program in nephrology.”

The current dialysis unit has been an independent, single free-standing facility for nearly 50 years, making it a rarity among programs associated with an academic medical center. Recent changes in reimbursement by Medicare and Medicaid create the environment that such facilities do not have the resources necessary to continue to operate at a level of service expected by patients and to compete with the large private providers in the marketplace.

“The dialysis program has a wonderful reputation locally and nationally,” said Joseph Carlucci, CEO and co-founder of American Renal Associates. “Being able to partner with a group that has such a strong track record for caring for patients is one of the reasons we became interested. Partnering with high quality physicians is a key component of our success. It allows the physician to have even more input into the care provided to patients.  Another reason is that through this partnership, we believe we will be able to bring that care to more people in the Louisville area.”

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