The Kidney is a Hydroelectric Dam

It is 04:50 Mountain Time and I'm getting ready to go to my new outpost in Douglas, AZ. I am learning how to pee for other people. Yes. It is an outrageously complicated task yet because of modern technology, it has become relatively simple. You just push a few buttons, stick two giant needles into a person's graft and press another button that looks like the AOL man running towards a dialysis machine and you're off and running.

I don't know much about it yet as you can see but what I can tell you is that peeing is important. I can tell you that you should take just as good care of your kidneys as you do your lungs, fingernails, teeth and heart. People truly underestimate all these things but it is the kidneys perhaps that are the most underestimated of all. Some people think it is the heart and there is a whole school of thought that believes it is the brain and still some others that think it is divine intervention that keeps us alive. I'm in the last group because I fully understand the interconnectedness of this enormously intricate machine in which we all live and how each part depends on the other parts to keep us up and running. The human body is nothing short of a miracle. I've always believed that and it was exactly that belief that led me to Islam.

It just couldn't be really...that the kidneys maintain a constant pressure gradient in order to rid the blood of potassium, to retain just enough sodium and release exactly enough water to keep the closed hydraulic system that is the circulation intact and maintain a pH between 7.35 and 7.45. So if the heart is a pump (famous words that prefix ANY lecture involving cardiovascular function) then the kidneys are a magnificent hydroelectric dam supplying the entire body with electrochemical balance and hydraulic pressure stability.

To think that it has taken human beings this long to learn to do what the kidneys do is humbling. And for those who know anything at all about the lives of those who are waiting for kidney transplants, a number that in the US (not to mention the third world) is increasing by such great numbers every year....they will grasp the beauty of the fact that in order to do what the kidneys do each and every day, a person has to go to a dialysis center somewhere in the city or the towns in which they live, three times a week and sit in a plastic lazy boy recliner for three to four hours each time. It is a special prison and requires incredible durability and patience for the sufferer of end stage renal failure. The training that goes into this process, on both the part of the patient and the nurse or technician who operates the machine and the doctor who oversees the whole thing is mind boggling. All to do what the pious little kidney starts doing from the moment we are born and continues doing so until the day we live no more or the day our two (not one) kidneys fail us. That we have two of these amazing organs is an outrageous blessing from Allah. That those two kidneys need such little technological support...well that goes without saying. Just talk to anyone who has to keep a dialysis pump in tip top shape.

So, I was talking to one fella who goes to dialysis three times a week and he told me something pretty fabulous. A number of things actually but this one thing he mentioned was really unusual. He told me that he'd suffered 19 heart attacks, something like 13 angioplasties and had been electrocuted three times, once by lightning. He is also a below the knee amputee and is proud of the fact that he is an active member of a Southern Arizona search and rescue team. Well, I'll say. I'd appreciate being rescued by such a man because he knows so much about survival.

I told him, "T, you prove that my theory is right." So he asked what that theory is. I said, "Cancer doesn't kill you, Allah kills you when he decides to take your soul." In other words, you live because you did not die. On any given day, you are alive because you did not die and not the other way around. The "i.e." we die when we are no longer alive...is just all wrong. Each and every day is a potential death experience but we are unaware of it except for that nagging feeling that usually grows deeper as each of us grows older and we wait and wait and wait.

T happened to agree. Another person, an athiest with whom I was once chatting doesn't. She said, "If there is a God then why does he let people die at all?" Well, it was interesting to hear what several muslims said to her i.e. coming with all sorts of pat answers and apologisms for the creator. I said, "If Allah had not allowed people to die then you would not have been born. There wouldn't be enough room for you because the earth by now would have become so overpopulated that no one would be able to find enough to eat." This settled her down because she just couldn't come up with something better to challenge me with.

Now I don't know alot about Islam. A very small amount really. What I do know is that Allah created us imperfect because Allah desires that we know exactly how much actually goes right...goes off flawlessly and without incident, like peeing. And between us he put love and charity as a goal. Not the just love everyone who comes along and give away your entire fortune to vagrants kind of love but the love of one believer for another. Because anyone who loves Allah is worthy of loving back.

T for instance who exists so that I can go and pee for him using this brilliant machine. As a nurse I have a unique blessing in that I can do works of "charity" AND get paid for them in cash not to mention the fact that if I enjoy doing it I get paid in another way. I get credit for loving what I do.

What does T get out of it? Well, easy. He said to me the other day, "I want to be your first." I said "What?"

He said, "The first time you have to stick someone, I want to be your first."

Al'ham'du'lillah. He knew how much fear is in my heart when thinking of inserting a 15 gauge metal needle (ordinary indwelling IVs are made of silicon and quite soft) into another human being. A needle that those in renal failure have to endure six times in any given week (one for the arterial and one for the venous access) and know and fear very well...a needle that looks more like a small knife than a medical tool. A needle that opens up their closed hydraulic system to all sorts of dangers and pains.

I told him, "Thank you." He knew and so did I what was going on in my life and in his. He put his own fear aside for the sake of my needs and volunteered to step up to the plate for me, a stranger.