In which I meet a jellyfish

by Mrs. Smith on August 7, 2015

Story time, for all you happy Smithtopia-stalkers!

It was crazy hot here this morning, so we took off to the beach.

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I had my feet in the water there for about 3 minutes when suddenly my right foot felt like it had caught fire. That’s a weird feeling. It’s in the water. And it’s on fire. Yeah, how did that happen?

I looked down to find a fat little jellyfish had washed up on my foot. Probably the biggest blue-bubble I’ve seen here (which isn’t saying a great deal, because blue bubbles are pretty small… but still).
It was stuck.
On my foot.

My face did not look like his, but in the background, to the left of the stairs – that was the site of the incident.

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I put the unlucky foot up on one of those rocks there, prayed the two year old in my arms wouldn’t try to “help Mommy,” and grabbed the slimy, squishy, bubble part and ripped it off as quickly as I could.
The tops don’t sting, thank you Finding Nemo.
– but sadly the tentacles all STAYED STUCK.
Ow ow ow ow ow…

BAD SQUISHY! BAD!!!

So what do you do? I didn’t want to grab them and then have my fingers burning too… Ugh. Super awkward moment.

There were no sticks or leaves or anything to use… I ended up likely making it a lot worse by just scrrrrrrrrrrraping the top of my foot on the sand until it rubbed off.
I’m a genius. It took several tries. I bet it looked pretty graceful and awesome, too.
But, hey, it got the thin little sticky little burning strands of blue lightning OFF.

I spent the next 20 minutes chanting “I forgive the jellyfish for stinging me – I forgive myself for not seeing it – I release all need for pain…”

Forgiveness can do pretty cool things, you know, in terms of letting your body let go of pain. But, at least in this case, no luck.

It did, however, help me calm down and make friends with the fact that my foot was on fire, and I ended up being able to stay and play instead of leaving right away like the wussy I wanted to be at first.  Go me!

It is possible to co-exist with pain and not be freaking out. It is not super fun, though. I even felt a little nauseous – does jellyfish poison do that? Bleh.

The good news: a nice person later brought some vinegar to pour on it. That helped. A bit. Having a paper towel or something soaked with it would have been better, probably.

The really good news: lavender oil!
Happy day!

Because, yes, when I got home an hour later it was still on fire. It really was a nasty, wasty sting. It had raised up to some nice big red welts, covering about 3 quarter-sized spots on my foot.

I wish I had taken a picture, because about 5 minutes after pouring some lavender on there, the pain left alllllllllmost completely and the swelling vanished and it’s just a little pink where the worst of it was. NICE!!!!

An hour after that, now, it’s just a little tiny bit itchy. Enough to remind me it happened.  Essential oils, I love you.

Now, it could have been worse.
Yes, it could have. Lots worse.

For one thing, better the top of my foot than the bottom.

And – the biggest “thank goodness” of all, of course —
Far, far better me than the kids. If a kid had been the unfortunate recipient of that little “visit” from Squishy, I would probably have gone totally crazy from the hours and hours of screaming that would have been involved.

(Yeah. Loud sounds + me are not good friends this week. But that’s totally okay because with 6 kids under 12, it’s hardly ever noisy at our house.)

You know, it’s kind of interesting, to recognize that if I had to choose between jellyfish-sting and unconsolable screaming for an extended period of time, I’d TOTALLY, without reservation, pick 2 hours of unquenchable fire.

Nice.

So. Silver linings notwithstanding,

my new favorite animals are now, officially, ANIMALS THAT EAT JELLYFISH. Most of them probably aren’t cuddly or cute – but they still hold a very special place in my heart.

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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Emma August 7, 2015 at 4:13 pm

Poor you!! I’m glad the oils worked for you. I liked your line about liking animals that eat jellyfish. It made me laugh..

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