Excerpt from my new book on living with kidney disease
So, I was doing some volunteer work in town, and I was painting benches for about 4 hours in the sun. Normally I would be okay with that, but this time out I got super weak, and didn’t feel great.
Later that day I had a routine kidney-related blood test at the hospital, and in between I went and got a burger, fries and a very large drink that I refilled. So I drank about 64 ounces of soda right after doing the work, but when I got to the hospital, they also wanted urine, and I could barely provide an adequate sample. Not to be gross, but I was so dehydrated that it was a problem.
Later, when I got my test back, my protein level was about 500 and some when it should have been less than a hundred. Now, when I’m considering activities, I don’t want to feel as though I’m useless, but I do tend to monitor how long I work, what kind of weather I work in, and make sure to be hydrated constantly.
More recently, I had to be out in the heat to help repair a household item, and I knew the heat was bad, but felt guilty about not helping out the people working on the item as I am only in my mid-fifties. I did not have that much physical work to do on this project, but I was out in the heat for hours.
I guess it is my fault, but I got really weak, and my kidneys started to sting. I told the others working that I had to go back in the house and they were understanding.
My one friend on the crew asked later how I was doing and I explained about the heat, but then I looked the issue up online and the internet confirmed and clarified my suspicions:
Heat stress, which invokes increases in core body temperature, particularly when coupled with dehydration (i.e., a hypertonic, hypovolemic state), amplifies processes that may result in kidney-related pathology, the most notable of which is acute kidney injury (AKI), which is generally defined as an acute reduction in kidney function (AKI)
So if you suffer from CKD, or if you are concerned about injuring your kidneys, please be sure to avoid heat stress, or get your kidney function tested. Before I was aware I had CKD, hospital tests for things like Creatinine, GFR and protein meant little to me; now they are touchpoints for my survival.
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“No one ever hates his own body, but feeds it and takes care of it just like Christ does for the church because we are parts of his body.”
Positive Press 
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