It's not the burning, it's the itching.

My jellyfish stings are acting up again. The red marks were practically gone yesterday but during the night they all came back in a bright shade of angry red and ITCH! What's going on?

Luckily, I work with a bunch of chemists. I now know more about jellyfish poison than I ever wanted. Seems the poison has to go out the same way it went in, through the skin. Anything under the sun can irritate these suckers until they wear themselves out.

Let me tell you how I met with such an unfortunate event. My mom and I signed up for a tour in the Bahama's called The Treasure Hunt. A family owns this private island out in the middle of the ocean just off Paradise Island. They cultivate conch and oysters. Once they remove the conch from the shell, they throw the shells back in and let tourists go hunting for them. They also have oysters out there just waiting to give up a big, fat pearl.

My mom was not the swimmer she thought she was. With the flippers falling off and her mask coming lose, she got out of the water about as fast as she went in. Me, I love to swim, so I took off in search of my treasure. I found two conch shells and brought them up, but I wanted a pearl. The reef we were swimming around was amazing. All kind of fish and colors, I was happy just looking around much less finding anything. At one point I looked over and saw a tiny little white jellyfish close by.

Now, my husband got stung a few years back by a baby jellyfish and it hurt like hell. So I slowly made my way around the jelly and continued my search. I found a lot of empty oyster shells but none with a pearl. I came back up from one dive to find myself surrounded by little white clouds. Then they attacked.

If you want to know what it feels like to get stung, go get a lighter, flick it on, and hold it close to your skin. Don't move it, even when your skin starts to fall off. So there I am, flopping about in the water, trying to get up a set of steps in two huge flippers and a strong current, with my flesh on fire all around me.

I got stung on my right calf, hip, wrist, bicept, and back. Of'course, the first aid building was all the way on the other side of the island. They use alcohol to kill the stingers. Ever rubbed pure alcohol into a wound? Feels nice, no? Then they slathered me with anti-itch cream and told me to go back and finish my swim.

Yeah, that happened.

Thankfully, an open bar came with the price of the hunt. I ate a burger (sooooo good), slammed down glass after glass of Paradise Punch, and waited for the boat to come back and take us to the ship. I didn't have any problems with the stings after about 45 minutes. Until last night. I think having to experience the pain of a sting twice is very unfair. I have my tube of Hydrocortisone I got from the ship's infirmary in my back pocket.

At least I got sympathy kisses on my boo-boos from my husband.

(Spell check is taking a day off.)