The transplant from her father was successful and today Robinson, now 32, still has her kidney transplant and is the executive director of the American Association of Kidney Patients in Tampa, Fla., a nonprofit organization dedicated to patient education about dialysis and kidney disease. One thing all dialysis patients must know a great deal about is diet. They need a good amount of protein and lower amounts of potassium and phosphate, which tend to accumulate in the blood and cannot be removed very well with treatment. French fries, for example, are off-limits, and ice cream and cheese must be eaten with caution. Dialysis patients also must limit fluids because the treatment removes only a certain amount of water.
Excess fluids make body tissues swell.
The first successful artificial kidney was developed in the 1940s by a Dutch physician, Willem J. Kolff. Because of World War II and the Nazi occupation of his country, he improvised many materials. For example, he used sausage-link casing for the semipermeable membrane. Since then, the process of dialysis has been fine-tuned over the years, and semipermeable membranes and dialysate have improved. Still, dialysis is not a cure.