One joyful Monday morning (4 weeks ago), Dad said "why don't you trim the cactus to burn off some of that excess energy" (Tigger has nothing on Josh! -Ed).  So I went off with a machete and a saw.  I took down one and then I cut it up into smaller pieces with the machete, it went through the branch quite easily!  I wanted to see if I could cut down another branch with it, but it wouldn't go through, so we tested out Isaac's mini chain saw (small hand held chain designed for  camping in the bush to cut small branches for firewood!), which worked very nicely, but the cut was horrible.  So I cut that off with a D saw, but, because the middle is hard and the outer flesh is soft, by the time I'd sawn through the hard bit, the blade hit the soft flesh, slid down and I got a thorn stuck deep into my finger.  There were several, which I got out, but that one I couldn't manage........so Mum stuck me in the car and dragged me off to the doctor!  He also tried with a needle, and got rather worried and sent me for an X ray (note to self....organic matter doesn't show up on X ray!).  Mum was busy paying and the diligent Doctors (note - who are shareholders and have caught us before! -Ed), summoned us back to do an ultrasound....picked up what they thought to be a 12mm foreign body in my finger!  But again weren't sure and at this stage started talking about doing an MRI of my finger!!!!!
At this point Mum called it quits and off we went for the antibiotics!!
The next day she took me off to an orthopaedic Doctor who's a friend and stuck my finger under his nose!  Being sensible and very conservative he told us that he could operate but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and as he told the X ray department "it was a little overkill to do a MRI of my finger at this stage!!"  He told us to wait and see if it festered and then we'd deal with it....easy as pie!!
So for the next 4 weeks we watched this finger....Mum panicked at one stage and took me back off to this Doctor who wanted to know what she was panicking about....it looked better than before!!!
So.....one month later....it did start to swell up and yes it had been sore for the whole month!  On Sunday, Mum told Dad she was worried and we should do something.....so Dad did!!!!  He told me to soak my hand in a mixture of bleach and warm water (as advised by the pharmacist!!), took a small scalpel and opened the top of it.  Not more than a minute of fiddling with Mum peering over and that 12mm cactus thorn shot out like a bullet.....what a hero Dad is!!!  Haha!, you should have heard Mum shout when that thing shot out!!! (Do you know what it's like being married to a super hero who can do anything!!!!! - Ed).
So....back on antibiotics, being congratulated by the orthopaedic doctor, and a great deal of admiration for the human body, the way God designed it and it's ability to heal itself!!!!  Note to Mum....please don't panic so much....Dad is a very capable bush doctor, and knows his stuff!!!