The Story of Kidneys (Part 4)

The Creator’s Almightiness

Being on the renal rotation in the last couple of weeks did brings a lot of difference to my understanding of life and the miracles it brings.

No humans, and long as the history goes, are able to create something so small in size yet supremely efficient, working silently in the background of a human life, filtering our body fluids.

It’s amazing to think how Allah Azza Wajjal is able to make the kidneys with such precision, efficiency and efficacy.

Comparing to the bulky, and noisy dialysis machine, the kidneys are so small and quiet. It does not cause any side effects as the dialysis would, and it didn’t cause any grumpiness and fatigue to the patients as the dialysis machine would.

Furthermore, the machine will force you to stay immobile besides it for 3-4 hours per day, but a normal, functioning kidney would never impedes our busy life.

Isn’t it amazing?

Subhanallah!

The Story of Kidneys (Part 3)

The Kidney

In essence, our kidneys have 4 major function:

1. Filter the blood content (i.e. the blood plasma) and removing substances from the filtrate at a variable rates, depending on the needs of the body. Ultimately, the kidneys “clear” unwanted substances form the filtrate (and therefore from the blood) by excreting them in the urine while returning substances that are needed back to the blood.

2. Regulate the blood pressure.

3. Regulate the acid-base balance.

4. Regulate the water and electrolytes balance.

Other than that, the kidneys are also important in the secretion, metabolism and excretion of hormones, along with the production of glucose.

Now, given this list, we can easily see that the kidneys are of paramount importance in ensuring our survival on this Earth (as with any other organs in our body).

Now that we have a little bit of an understanding of what the kidneys do, the next sensible question would be:

“What will happen if I lose my kidneys?”

The Creation’s Solution

     vs.         

If a kidney fails, the other one can cover up for you. But if both of your kidneys fail, you will have to either replace it with a new one or on on with a dialysis in order to survive; the latter one being more common and easier to do. In the dialysis process, the person will be hooked up to a machine (by connecting the person’s artery to the machine) and blood will be filtered by that machine (i.e. acts as an artificial kidney).

But, as the specialist commented;

“Well obviously, dialysis can never fully replace the functions of the kidneys. The kidneys continuously filter the blood but with the dialysis machine, you could only do that 3-4 hours per day.”

This statement leads me to write this article. I just realized a very important organ I had taken for granted all this time. But I guess it is not surprising if this is the case for most people. The kidneys just sit quietly on the lower part of our tummy, doing its jobs efficiently and silently. It is not hard to miss the big roles they play.

Personally, in retrospect, I never really appreciates the importance of the kidneys. Sure, they are there and sure doing something important, but it is not until I see it with my own eyes the consequences of losing the kidneys that I firmly believe and appreciate them.

Perhaps it’s true that seeing is believing.