Blog Action Day

Hi everyone,

I spend a little (too much) time reading blogs around the net, and quite a few of them have mentioned Blog Action Day. It's when every blogger that comes across the idea writes about a topic on thier blog that day. This year's topic is poverty.

http://site.blogactionday.org/poverty/fight-poverty/

Have a look at the link above for 88 ways to fight poverty.

I guess I really don't do enough to alleviate poverty in this world. Sure, I'm aware of it, I know about the MDGs, but what am I actively doing to stop it?

Time for all of us to step up. Remember the story about the boy on the beach, throwing starfish into the sea? "It made a difference to that one". Let's make that individual difference. Today.

Please say hello to my new friend, Tick.

Tick is a relative newcomer to my home, and I'm afraid I didn't even know he was visiting for a number of days.

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As I was changing into some crappy clothes (you know the kind-- "Oh, I just need to go to the servo, this stupid purple dress thing over exercise pants will do..."), I saw a mark next to my left bra strap on my back. My first thought was skin cancer - "oh, shit! That freckle has grown like a motherfu...wait. Oh fuck. OOOOH FUCK. It has legs."

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**Panic**

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So after a few tears and a frenzied dash downstairs, calls were made to all and sundry, trying to work out how the hell to get this thing off me without it injecting anything into my previously taken for granted muscles.

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After calls to mum, to the poisons hot line, to Health Direct and GP Connect (Don't you love public holidays), I asked my flatmate to follow the nice lady's instructions and lever it out with tweezers. The goal of course being not to break the body off from the head/jaws bit, because then I would be doomed. Doomed.

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She broke it off.

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Hitting panic stations AGAIN, I called back to the lovely people at Health Direct (you know, they've been advertising it--"Maybe it's just a cough, maybe not?"). Ok, so it turns out I have 4 hours to get it removed or *something bad* will happen.

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A quick dash to Emergency at the RAH followed, complimented by some none-too-helpful triage nurses. "We don't have ticks in South Australia." "I know, I was in NSW all last week, walking through bush to parties". "But we don't have ticks in SA". Gosh. Darn it. I must have been dreaming the GIANT bloodsucking creature lucking on my back and putting me at risk of muscle paralysis.

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I went through fairly quickly, and they were all rather friendly about. The doctor even showed me the scar from her tick bite. Some random male nurse thought it was a great idea to wander in and have a nosey - good thing I'm not shy. After local anaesthetic and an incision (sounds cooler than it is), I was butterfly clipped and sent upon my merry way.

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So herein lies the adventure of the TICK. If any of you were at SPM and are reading this, please have a look in all your nooks and crannies for BLOOD SUCKING TICKS. The grass along the road that led to the Community Hall was infested with them.

Love and closer inspection to you all. xx