Hi Christina--there's a SLIGHT possibility we're related, hard to say without more information. My grandfather Pasquale Pisano was born in Italy in 1892, don't know that he had or didn't have a blood disease. His first wife was Italian--they lived in NJ and were divorced in the early 1940's.
He remarried soon thereafter, I don't know whom--she could have been an American, he might have moved to Brooklyn, they might have had a son before he died in 1949. (I'd never thought about that!) If so that son might have been old enough to be your father. Was your father born in the 40's? Was he an orphan by 1955? (I see you were born in '66--I was '67.)
So if all of this happens to line up, we could be cousins!Do you have any more info to go on?
Best,
Paul Pisano