Warning: This article contains information about sexual assault which may be distressing for some readers.
1. Lyn Parent’s impulsive decision to get a tattoo left her with an HIV diagnosis and only six months to live.

It was July 1992 when Lyn Parent made an impulsive decision that would change her life forever: while accompanying her little sister to get a tattoo, Lyn decided she would get one of her own, a butterfly on her bikini line.
As the eldest, she told her sister she would go first, eager to calm her sibling's nerves.
"I remember noticing that a guy before me had had a tattoo and the artist hadn't changed the needles. But I didn't think anything of it. We didn't in those days, I wasn't worried," Lyn told Daily Mail Australia this week.
"In fact, I told my sister I would go first as I was the eldest. He changed the needle after he inked me."
She didn't give her new tattoo a second thought, returning to France, where she was working as a tour guide at the time. Eight weeks later, she developed flu-like symptoms.
"I had a yellow face, I couldn't eat and I needed to sleep nearly all the time," Lyn said.
"I knew I needed to go to the doctor, and when they told me my temperature was extremely high, I returned home where specialists ran lots of tests to see whether I had malaria."
Ten days and more tests later, Lyn was handed a devastating diagnosis: she had HIV and doctors predicted she had just six months left to live. After running tests on three of her ex-boyfriends, Lyn was then told she had contracted the disease from her tattoo.
Top Comments
1. Feeds into my comments on https://www.mamamia.com.au/... people have forgotten how serious it is. The pill is something you take when you are in a long term monogamous relationship where both of you have been tested. It is not for internet hook-ups. People DIE from AIDS. We need to remind people to use a condom, and ditch the pill.