By Kyle McDonald | Staff Writer

Spring commencement ceremonies close the Kent State University academic year Saturday with 4,285 students prepared to receive their hard-earned degrees.

But, architecture major Za-Non Miller likely wouldn’t have joined his fellow graduates, let alone lived, without a tremendous amount of focus, determination and a crucial gift from his mother.

“The summer of 2005 I became very ill without knowing it. I went to the hospital for a headache and I never came out until two months later on,” Miller said.

Miller, 20 at the time, discovered his body contained only six of the 13 pints of blood needed to live, the result of a kidney that had failed two years earlier without his knowledge. The East Cleveland native had just finished his second year at Cuyahoga Community College and was gearing up to enter Kent State’s notoriously demanding architecture program.

“I was really shocked. They gave me a blood transfusion that night, but I lost it the next day and then some more blood,” he said. “I was pronounced dead on the bed.”

But dead he wasn’t, and in the fall of 2005 Miller began undergoing dialysis, which required four hours, three days per week for a year. Although it wasn’t possible for Miller to go to Kent State at the time, he began taking part-time courses at Cleveland State University to stay busy.

“It was stressful, but I always want to be on the go. I can’t just sit and wait,” he said. “I would push myself and do homework while on the machine.”

In 2006, Miller’s mother, Charmaine, donated a kidney to her son, and one year later, he was finally able to begin courses at the university he anticipated attending two years earlier.

“She gave me a second life,” he said of his mother.

Miller will receive his bachelor of arts degree in architecture studies Saturday, but said he already plans to return in the fall to work for another two years and earn his bachelor of science in architecture, the professional degree. He hopes to apply his passion for post-modernism design to residential architecture in the future.

“I love space and I love to work within that space to see what’s going on within that experience,” he said. 

And, while Miller is excited to finally walk across the stage, he said his mother’s excitement far exceeds his own.

“She’s going crazy right now — her and everybody I’m close to because I kept on going,” he said.

Miller said he’s kept his story within a close circle of friends and family, rather than let his illness become an excuse for sympathy.

Instead, Miller said he prefers to be spontaneous and find the parts of life worth enjoying such as rock climbing, traveling and learning many dance styles including Latin, swing, ballroom and tap, which he plans to show-off when it’s his turn to cross the stage.

“I don’t want people to treat me differently because I’m sick on the inside,” he said. “It has been a long journey for me. I call it my dialysis-to-diploma stage. It doesn’t matter how down I am inside, because my spirit is always alive.”

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GEORGETOWN, Wash.—George E. Schreiner, 89, a Georgetown University medical school nephrologist who was a leading figure in the study of kidney disease and dialysis, died April 12 at Sunrise assisted living in Reston. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

The death was confirmed by his son William Schreiner.

Schreiner served on the Georgetown faculty from 1951 to 1987, when he was named a distinguished professor of medicine. He was a top clinical researcher in the technique of hemodialysis, employing an artificial kidney, and showing its effectiveness in prolonging the lives of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD).

In the 1960s, Schreiner helped start a Georgetown fellowship program for nephrologists. In the 1970s, he was a key player in successful efforts to secure federal payments for kidney dialysis and organ transplants.

Schreiner wrote for professional journals and book chapters, and he was a past president of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), the International Society of Nephrology, the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs, and the National Kidney Foundation (NKF). He received many professional honors.

While leading the NKF  in the early 1970s, Schreiner helped orchestrate a national campaign to encourage adults to carry a Uniform Donor Card that allowed physicians to use the holder’s organs for transplantation or other medical purposes. The card followed passage of the Anatomical Gift Act of 1968.

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STONY BROOK, N.Y., May 4, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Sound Interventions, Inc. today announced the successful completion of the company's First-In-Human clinical trial (SOUND-ITV) to treat resistant hypertension.

The study was performed by Dr. Petr Neuzil and a team of cardiologists at Holmolka Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic. Patients enrolled in the study were selected based on a history of hypertension which could not be controlled with medical therapy. The SOUND-ITV study is focused on safety and effectiveness of the company's volumetric dosimetry-based application of unfocused ultrasound (patents pending). Patients enrolled in the study will be followed for 12 months to evaluate the procedure's effectiveness in lowering blood pressure.

"This study demonstrated the feasibility of the acute procedure," stated Doc. MUDr. Petr Neuzil, CSc., FESC, Chairman, Department of Cardiology of Holmolka Hospital. "The procedures highlighted the ease with which the system and the ultrasound energy may be delivered, minimizing the number of applications of energy and the procedure time."

Dr. Vivek Reddy, of Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City, who is an advisor to Sound Interventions, commented, "In addition to testing the effectiveness of ultrasound in lowering blood pressure, the study was designed to evaluate the ability of the technology to deliver a specific dose of ultrasound which is effective in affecting the renal sympathetic nerves, while sparing the renal artery from damage. We are encouraged by the complete lack of ultrasound-induced spasm in the renal arteries during these procedures. Spasm is a common occurrence when radiofrequency energy is delivered in the renal arteries."

"The successful completion of the treatment phase of the SOUND-ITV study is an important milestone for Sound Interventions, and brings us closer to our goal of commercialization of the Sound Interventions' technology," said David Smith, President & CEO of Sound Interventions. "While we await the important follow-up data from this series of patients, we continue to move forward with our plans for an expanded European trial."

About Sound InterventionsSound Interventions is a privately held emerging medical technology company focused on the development of therapeutic ultrasound for the treatment of resistant hypertension. Founded in 2010, Sound Interventions is located in the Long Island High Technology Incubator at Stony Brook, NY. For more information, please visit www.sounditv.com .

Dr. Neuzil received financial support from Sound Interventions for the SOUND-ITV Study.

Dr. Reddy is an equity holder in Sound Interventions.

SOURCE Sound Interventions, Inc.

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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SOURIS — The line in the sand being drawn over health service cutbacks in rural P.E.I. sparked a major protest meeting here Thursday night with more than 200 people jamming the local hospital to fight back.

They filled the meeting room, they lined the halls and they blocked the stairwells, and while the mood was peaceful, the anger was palpable.

“I came back here to live, to raise a family . . . but the way things are being cut back so badly, it’s turning this place into a ghost town,’’ said Kyle MacDonald.

“We’re all taxpayers, but we’re being treated as second-class citizens.”

The government is scaling down the new high school here, has closed the walk-in clinic at the hospital and is now shutting down the dialysis unit.

It means about a dozen local residents will have to travel to Charlottetown three times a week for treatment but for many, it represents a slippery slope towards losing all services.

“It’s going to cost me an extra $200 a month to take dialysis now,’’ said Nathan Bushey.

“Not to mention it will take up the entire day to do it. Some of these patients here are on social assistance and sending us all to town three times a week only clogs up their system.”

Bushey insisted the protest/petition was not a Souris versus Province House arm wrestle, and noted a public meeting was being held in Alberton aimed at similar goals to stop the bleeding of rural health services.

The 28-year-old said he’s even been contacted by Charlottetown dialysis patients who agree the funnelling of all patients into the QEH will only overwhelm the service.

“I hope we can form a coalition of all rural people and patients being affected on this Island and demonstrate a much greater show of force,” he said.

Moderator and businessman Alan MacPhee insisted the meeting was not a political battle, but rather a fight to save the services of rural P.E.I.  

However, some well-known Liberal supporters didn’t mince words when they took to the podium microphone.

“You have to be a little more aggressive than signing a sheet,” insisted Lloyd Soloman. “As far as I’m concerned, we should sue Health P.E.I. and Mr. (Keith) Dewar and make him accountable. It’s not a political issue, it’s a human issue and we don’t know what the next thing will be that is taken from our hospital.”

The wages of top-ranking officials were published in The Guardian that very day, and some like Health P.E.I. CEO Keith Dewar — making almost $200,000 a year — were verbally burned in effigy.

Mayor David MacDonald said if Bushey was a civil servant and got travel allowance, his trips to Charlottetown three times a week for an entire year would add up to $11,000.

Photographer and community activist Waldron “Wally” Leard, who is battling cancer, said government is contributing to rural decay.

“We are definitely being looked after by the health-care people in this province, but not by the health-care administration,” he said.

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