I got sucked on by my first leech!***My immediate response, particularly after I saw a little blood on my foot, was one of
“Eek! Eek!” horror, as I sent that little sucker flying in a move of reflexive panic. Afterwards, though, when I discovered I probably was going to survive to tell the tale and then did some reading on it, I ended up being more fascinated than horrified.
It happened when I was out in a canoe in my pond, “working” yesterday, with a couple of human friends and one really enthusiastic mucky canine friend, to remove some of the floating pond weeds that want to blanket the pond this time every year. Since the temperature was in the 90’s and since, like a silly little kid, I end up getting soaking wet with almost more water in the canoe than in the pond whenever I do this, it’s a chore that, to me, really doesn’t feel like a chore. It’s fun. The fact that I get to be out there, in the midst of what feels like all that beauty, taking in nature, exalting in the ducks that feel secure enough to not fly off, talking with my friends, laughing at my dog, small wonder that it doesn’t feel like work.
Anyway, what I do is submerge my arms in the water, twirling the long stringy pond weeds around like you twirl spaghetti strands with a fork on a spoon, and then, when I’ve wrapped up an armful, I bring the weeds into the canoe until the canoe is piled so high with them, I come close to capsizing. (Having an empty coffee can aboard to continually bail water helps to avert any embarrassing excursions to Davy Jones’ Locker). I do this every year, sometimes sans canoe in waders, sometimes, sans canoe and waders, just in shorts and yes, a top.
Never never never before did I meet up with a leech. For how many years I’ve done it, ignorance often being just really great bliss, I would have thought the pond didn’t have any leeches, though I had wondered about it, years before. Well, they say that there’s a first time for everything, and yesterday was my first encounter with a blood-sucking leech. By the way, it didn’t hurt at all.
Lesson For the Day:
Hirudotherapy is the term that refers to the use of leeches in medicine. I knew that leeches are used in all kinds of delicate microsurgeries. It's fascinating to think that the “cure” might feel worse than the affliction for people who are a little squeamish, for some reason, at the thought of these creepy crawlers affixing themselves to their faces or wherever the doctors need them to do their anti-coagulating service.
This part, though, I hadn’t known about, but thought it was pretty interesting, and, because of the implications of it, a (maybe not so) little sad:
“… Leeches normally carry parasites in their digestive tract which cannot survive in humans and do not pose a threat. However, bacteria, viruses, and parasites from previous blood sources can survive within a leech for months, and may be retransmitted to humans. A study found both HIV and hepatitis B in African leeches from Cameroon…”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech***Of course I’m aware of the multitudinous and not necessarily “on-color” responses that that my opening line will invite, but really, that’s how the actual event of it first framed itself in my mind. Anyway, I thought it would probably get your attention. It did, right?!
That’s funny. I just looked at the Wikipedia article again and noticed the picture I’m posting below for the first time. Where that leech was in the picture is almost exactly in the same place on the body where I found my very own Lovely Little Luigi.
Because I think it’s important to try to be careful about different people’s sensitivities when we post pictures here, and because of the not exactly totally comfortable reactions I felt, myself, when looking at some of the pictures, I’m going to let you of the more staunch of heart who want to go check out leeches at Google Images do it on your own. The pics are particularly interesting, if icky, when you use the search terms, leeches in medicine.
