The Golden Staph

It started on our first day in Sydney. I reach into my pocket to pull out some 2 dollar coins and I notice that my thumb tip feels a little tender. I look for a reason for the pain, but there's nothing to see. What I now know is that was the first sign that I had a truly painful, quick moving, and very hard to treat infection growing under my skin. Goodbye Sydney, hello Grandparents in Salamander Bay. First I was misdiagnosed with a fractured thumb, then a few days later told that it was a common infection, no worries mate. I got some antibiotics and some really strong pain pills that would make it better within two days. Two days later it was worse and needed to be drained. That should do the job. It's now been over a week. Rachel and I decide that I will be better now so it is time to move on to Brisbane. First night there I receive a call from my nurse practitioner Jason (who was wonderful) that I might as well have been taking candy to treat my infection. It turns out that I have an MRSA infection, more commonly referred to as Golden Staph. Almost all kinds of staph infections can be treated quickly with metacilin (may not be spelled correctly). The golden staph is a metacillin resistant strain that resists most treatments and medicines. I was luck that they tested the goo from my thumb or it would have gotten much worse. I went straight to the doctor in the morning who gave me the right medicine. Now its time to explain the picture. The doctor sent me to have my thumb dressed by the nurse. Apparently dressed means squeezing my thumb until I scream, hit Rachel, jump off the bed, and cry like I haven't cried in years. Once I sat down again the nurse said, “Oh yes, it did look a bit tender. Hold your breath and lets have another go.” I tried to let her do it again, but I couldn't, so she wrapped it up tight and Rachel snapped a picture.
It's doing much better now that I've been on the right medicine for 5 weeks. I don't need to wrap it up any more. Now is when I have to be patient and not play with it. Lately Rachel says it looks like a raisin. Uncle Ian says more like the end of a hotdog. I'm just happy that they didn't cut if off. I'll write more, but only if it gets worse.

Back to the Beach - Noosa

We're here almost a week, Adam comes to visit as well, and we might stay a bit more. It's beautiful, and relaxing. Vernon takes us to the boat club and we go sailing - we LOVE it. We don't realize until we are there that we are speed sailing, and the boat Vernon and I are on win the afternoon race. We recieve a bottle of wine, the Captain - Peter, wants us to have it. The next day Alison & I go sea kayaking, we are very adventourous. It's us, a guide and one other couple. We are prepared to kayak in the river, we're not so sure about the ocean. The ocean is very choppy at times, but we paddle, watch surfers, and try not to roll our kayak. The guide complements us on our paddling skills (or at least Alison's, I try not to freeze when waves come) Alison might kill me but we make it through, two hours later we are done, and soaked. We go home and prep to cook dinner.

Katoomba

From Sydney we head to Katoomba where we spend two days hiking around. It is unbelievable beautiful. Waterfalls, the Three sisters - rock formations, and Grand Canyon like vastness but with greenery, then tropical forest. We stay in a super hippie hostel with really nice people, then head back to Sydney and Brisbane. We are hosting a birthday bbq for uncles' Vernon, Ian and myself (Rachel) on the weekend. We have a great time and cook a huge southern feast - ribs, chicken, cornbread, greenbeans, and potato salad. On Sunday we head to Noosa with Aunt Karen, Uncle Vernon, and their six year old daughter Tennille.

Parade

The crowd gets whistles, and Jarrod gives Alison and I a sandwich since we've been there all day. We are back in the same hostel as when we first arrived in Sydney. They are doing construction on the building, we find out this means they've torn out the bathroom in our building. We are hoping we won't wake in the middle of the night to pee. We are exhausted after the parade and crash out pretty much immediately after. We spend the next day wandering around Sydney and take an evening ghost tour.

Mardi Gars

We go to reserve a spot on the street at three in the afternoon by sitting on the curb. The parade does not start until 7pm. There is a liquor store on the corner. We meet wonderful people whom we are standing next to and proceed to drink a fair bit throughout the afternoon/evening. They give us whistles, and we're a bit tipsy. The parade is great, and the whole city is celebrating. We meet Todd's Australian doppelganger, if not soul mate. We get info for Todd, and say only good things about him.

train with baby

Finally on the train to Sydney, Mardi Gras here we come! This train has a crying baby, but our return train has really obnoxious people on it, and three people with no shoes. I'm just sayin'. Alison is mad, and yells at obnoxious guy at three in the morning - they shut up. My hero.

Brisbane to Sydney take one

Back to Brisbane for a day, repack, and back to the train, another 16hr trip back to Sydney. Actually, when we book our tickets, the women we speak to tells us the wrong time for the train. She does not account for daylight savings time, seriously?, and we miss our train. We think we are an hour early, but in fact we are five minutes late. We are mad. We rebook for the next day and Ian picks us up from the train station. (the photo is taken at this time, I have a mouth full of peanut butter- alison made us sandwiches for the train) We try again the next day and are really an hour early this time. There is a crying baby sitting behind us on the train. We are afraid it will cry the whole time. Thank you iPod, you make our lives better. They exit the train after a while. We actually sleep this time. We are packing lighter and traveling savvyer than before.

Outdoor feast, family & new friends

Lauren Rocks it out in the grilling department. She makes potato & avocado salad, and coconut thai fish, along with prawns and scallops on the grill. I'm not even showing the pictures of all the meat Adam got, kebabs, sausages, and steak. A wonderful day and meal, including above mentioned peach daquiris. A great send off for us. We'll be back there after Easter.

TaDa!!!!

This is a Dragon Fruit, it's really cool looking, and feels rubbery on the outside. The inside's texture feels like a kiwi fruit in your mouth, but has no real flavor, or much to be able to describe anyway. Really interesting for a fruit that looks so distinctive. We decide to add it to peach daquiris we are making for a bbq Lauren & Adam are giving. Good choice. I need to get my eyebrows done - I know.

ALL NEW INFO!!!!!.....

For all of our friends and family in the states...We have figured out how to forward our calls from our computer to our cell phone here. Sooo...if you call us at 646-867-3849, which is a New York number, instead of going to our computer, and leaving a message with a creepy sounding recording (which we've since changed), your call will automatically forward to the cell phone we are using here. It still only uses our minimally priced computer Skype minutes, (isn't Skype AWESOME!) so don't worry. If you want or need to talk to us, no worries mate, we're here.
look forward to hearing your voice.
xox

Day Trip with cousins

We see some nature, and spend the day hiking in the bush. Beautiful. I feel like I'm on vacation.
We're too early in the day for glow worms, but we do see bats, and waterfalls. Good enough for me.

the Gold Coast

Adam takes us to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, about 45 min. from Uncle Ian. Where we spend almost a week with cousins Adam, Lauren, and roommate Ainsley. We hang out, cook food, see sights, hike, have a barbeque, and swim. Excellent. Lauren lets us sleep in her bed. The weather is perfect. We think the rain has stopped.

he looks like Alison's dad

Ian is wonderful, he lets us borrow the car, stay at his house, and takes us to the bar. He also has a pool, so we try to cook dinner for him.

and queso

Adam asks us to make tacos and burritos, we must ablidge - we make him wear this shirt.

Ian, Adam, and meatpies

Alison's cousin Adam comes to visit, they take us for meat pies. This is a super cute place by Ian's house.

bye for now

New Postings!!! Here's whats been happening in the last two weeks: Nan and Grandad take us to the train station where we hop on a bus, then a train for Brisbane. Uncle Ian picks us up at 6am, we realize it's hard to sleep on the train sometimes, and it's really cold. We spend the day wandering around Brisbane. We are exhausted but happy. And we check out the Brisbane Botanical Garden. It's beautiful, it's raining and we take an hour long guided tour with two other people, one of whom is from Katy, Texas. (Close to where I am from.) We see lily pads, and two large turtles, and large iguanas and lizards, as well as the ibis, my new favorite bird. They have really long curved beaks. Ian takes us to the club (bar) after work and then we head home. Australia is all about clubs ie: rugby clubs, rowing clubs, barefoot bowls - which Ian belongs to and we'll explain later (when we understand). We are back in Brisbane on Friday for a Barefoot Bowls Tournament - which I think we are participating in.