The bloody ant bully

I STARED death in the eye … and I think death had hay fever because his eyes were red … Allow me to explain.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, back in the days when Kimberley was still the City that sparkled, I was playing with my friends on the dark grey mine dumps that encircled what used to be the Eddie Williams Oval.

I loved those slate grey dumps; moreso after it had rained when the soil was darker and we could dig around in the dirt. Back then, we were looking for fun, not diamonds, and that’s what made it special.

It was while digging in the dirt one day that we – the adventurous youngsters that we were – discovered a nest of some interesting-looking insects none of us had seen before. Their fat, white abdomens, large brown heads and massive darker brown mandibles were fascinating to observe.

Remember, we had very few other forms of entertainment back then, and to watch these creatures swarm and scurry had us captivated.

And then my hand erupted into white hot flames of agony!

One of the bigger bugs – we later discovered that it was termites – had latched on to me and he was burrowing his brown fangs into my thumb.

There was blood everywhere. An emergency helicopter flew in, paramedics abseiled down to where I lay convulsing; police blocked off traffic all the way to the hospital’s emergency room and the best surgeons in the world were flown in from their holiday resorts in St Moritz and the Bahamas.

OK, technically that’s not what happened. But before my arm was emptied of blood, my dad had detached the angry insect, rinsed off the bite and wrapped his white handkerchief around the wound.

Well, the hanky was white before it was drenched in blood … there was quite a bit of blood.

I have never been squeamish, but having learned how quickly one can be mauled by a wild ant gave me a sense of how important and healthy it is to keep one’s blood inside your body … well, until recently, that is.

You see, I learned that sometimes getting a bit of blood out of your body may not be such a bad idea; this according to Dr David Derose an Internal and Preventive Medicine physician with an MPH (Master of Public Health) degree in Health Promotion and Health Education.

With these credentials, I decided to at least hear him out.

Dr Derose spoke about something he called ‘hemorheology’. He also called it ‘blood fluidity’. Crudely put, hemorheology or blood fluidity is the study of how blood flows. This is important because only when blood is flowing optimally can it penetrate tissue and do its work throughout our bodies. Apparently, when blood does not flow optimally, the body’s organs and tissue are at risk of disease.

According to the doctor’s research, a pint of blood donated at least four times per year was shown to improve blood fluidity and could noticeably help lower blood pressure. He also spoke about how regular donation helps the body rid itself of excessive iron.

And why would you want less iron? (I am not speaking to those struggling with anaemia).

Well, according to research, iron plays a crucial role in many physiological processes of the human body but, over time, iron is continuously deposited in the brain as we age. Early studies in research into the impacts of iron accumulation on cognitive impairments found iron overload is directly proportional to cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease.

But besides the medical reasons, just think about it … regular blood donation means that you are actually helping people. And did you know that it’s been found that doing something altruistic – helping others selflessly – actually improves one’s blood fluidity, resulting in better health.

In other words, donating blood benefits the receiver as well as the giver.

According to Indian guru Sadhguru, the simple act of donating blood gives one what he calls “an active sense of humanity”. Sadhguru suggests that by donating, you show yourself willing to help someone you will probably never meet, and that is a really good thing.

Imagine if just by donating blood every few months our society could become more kind, more humane, more good-natured? People seem to be really angry and frustrated these days. Imagine if Sadhguru is right and just by donating 470ml of blood we can become nicer people.

Imagine if giving a pint of blood every few months protects our brains. Imagine if bleeding for 10-15 minutes now and again could help our blood pressure and boost our health … just imagine.

That makes me feel pretty guilty. Because if I was a nicer, kinder, more good-natured person back in the late ’70s, I would not have allowed my blood pressure to rise, my temper to flare and gone back to those grey mine dumps in such a dark mood to stomp an entire nest of termites into oblivion.