With that being said, I haven't forgotten about my endeavors toward being an advocate in the fight against cancer. I try to keep up with latest info, I read articles all the time, I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to stupid cancer (not the organization, just cancer, cause it's stupid), I post facts on my facebook page regarding signs and symptoms, statistics, etc mostly with Kidney Cancer in general (although I'm on a facebook hiatus currently. Good thing to do every once and a while!) But I think most importantly of all, my advocacy has become a career goal. In fact, I wrote a blog about it a couple months ago on my advocacy blog (Don't think I mentioned that hear. I am so bad at this stuff!) You should check it out: Life With One Bean
So, the "inspiration" for blogging here again came from some recent events regarding my health that had me wondering. I've changed some things about my diet and am on a new path toward health but I wanted to make sure I really was doing it right this time. I was curious a few days ago what I could find regarding diet and health with one kidney.
/sidebar: After surgery, my doctor literally only said regarding life with one kidney was "lower your sodium intake." That was it. Ok?? And I was seeing a nutritionist, and while she was a very nice person, she didn't really know anything about living with one kidney and to be honest, probably wasn't qualified to handle my obesity problem. I took some general information she had given me but at that time it wasn't practical in my life. /endsidebar
I did some google searching in class the other day (done with everything in that class, so I'm starting to phone it in) and for the first time, I actually found stuff out. Yes, I've done the exact same searches before but always came away with nothing. Not sure why this time was different. Here is what I learned about living with one kidney:
- When you lose one kidney, your remaining kidney grows in size to accommodate. Because of your now enlarged kidney, you're at more of a risk for injury, especially with regards to contact sports.
- A daily sodium intake should be between 1,500-2,000mg. Any higher causes hypertension, thicker blood and then makes your heart beat faster.
- Protein levels should be lower too in order to prevent the protein from leaking out of the blood stream into your urine. Once this happens, your body will retain the fluid in your abdomen and ankles. (Now I understand why my doctor was always checking my ankles at each appointment. He could have told me.)
- Urinalysis and blood levels should be checked yearly and kidney function (looking for the GFR efficiency) every few years.
- Lowering phosphorus or potassium or else it can lead to calcium deficiency and bone disease and irregular heart beat.
- And of course Diabetes is a major underlying factor for kidney failure.
This is all interesting information. I've been eating extremely well for the last few weeks and have actually acheieved the water intake I've been striving for for years. (Don't know why drinking water has been so hard). Because of this, my body has been going through a transition because it is essentially detoxing! Part of the reason I got into the right mindframe was I could actually feel my body holding on to too much sodium and crap. Now that I have this info I can try to keep my sodium levels as close as possible to a healthy level. It's really hard. REALLY hard. Calories? Old news, that's easy. Sodium? Not so much. Basically if I eat more than 1 processed food item in a day, I come dangerously close to going over the limit. Whole foods is the way to go!
It's taken 2 years to understand it, but it's finally time to treat this one kidney RIGHT! I want to have a relationship with it that's healthy for the rest of my life. We're kind of attached to each other.
Hold on... WE SHOULD NAME IT! We named my other kidney and I got rid of Vlad because he was bad... but this little guy (big guy now..) is GOOD and needs a name. Suggestions??
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