Note: For background on this series, please read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project.
A platter of lamb kidneys, courtesy Wikicommons
My grandfather on my father’s side died not long before I was born. He had seven children – five sons and two daughters, not counting the baby who died. My grandfather died of kidney failure. He had a progressive and incurable genetic disorder called polycystic kidney disease. With this disease, the kidneys are slowly overtaken by fluid-filled cysts. The kidneys get larger and larger and less and less functional. Without at least one functional kidney – or an artificial means to perform the organs’ duties (dialysis) – the body cannot get rid of excess fluid and wastes. The body becomes more and more polluted, and, over time, it will die.
Genetics is a field of study I comprehend only slightly, certainly not enough to explain how this disease is transmitted from one generation to another. Yet I do know that if one parent has it there is a 50 percent chance that each offspring will have it, generation through generation.
Polycystic kidneys, courtesy Wikicommons
In this regard, I am a lucky man. My father did not inherit the gene for polycystic kidneys. One of my uncles and both of my aunts, however, did. And so did several of their children, my cousins. The uncle and aunts have had kidney transplants – but not after years of increasing suffering through various aspects of the disease. Several cousins also have had transplants. One of them had a kidney that had grown to the size of a newborn baby and weighed ten pounds.
Kidneys are paired organs, each about the size of a clenched fist. They are located in posterior portion of the abdominal cavity approximately in the area of and protected by the lower two ribs. The functional unit of the kidney is the nephron. Each kidney contains up to a million nephrons. Blood is filtered through the nephrons. Everything in the blood except the red and white blood cells is removed. Then – through the magic of chemistry, osmosis, and semi-permeable membranes – the nephron returns to the blood all the chemicals and water the body needs. What’s left behind is urine.
Not everyone is born with two kidneys. Sometimes, they are joined into what is called a horseshoe kidney. If one had a horseshoe kidney, one wouldn’t know it without some sort of definitive exam – ultrasound or MRI, for example. Or surgery.
One normal kidney is sufficient to do the job, which is good for those who are fortunate enough to find a donor for transplant.
For background on this series, please read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project.
2 Comments
were did you get the kidneys that was the kidneys of people or animals?
The kidneys shown in the photograph are from sheep. I go the photograph from Wikicommons