We recently had a few glorious days of warmer weather, which for a beach bum like myself, is as good as it gets.

With the warmer weather the ocean calls and I have been doing a bit of deep wading/swimming along with my loyal Labrador sidekick Billy. Which brings me to an afternoon last summer at Roosevelt Beach that started out innocent enough, but turned into the Big Sting (BS) trauma incident.

It was warm, and I was enjoying a typical day at the beach — swimming, reading a book, watching my dog furiously dig holes in the sand. She really gives it her all. Watching the waves swell in and the clouds float on by.

After another walk in the water, I returned to my chair and my book. All was well.

I looked down at my right ankle. It was all yellowish pale and red flesh. I reached down to wipe whatever it was off and the skin melted, dripping off my hand and into the sand. It was a wound of about six inches tall and four inches wide.

Like the educated doctor that I am, I concluded I had been stung by a jellyfish while swimming, specifically a Lion’s mane jellyfish. Those who regularly walk the beach are familiar with washed up Lion’s mane jellyfish — about two feet wide, the color of Merlot and drying up on shore.

Other names for the Lion’s mane jellyfish include arctic red jellyfish, hair jelly, snottie, sea blubber and giant jellyfish. The largest one on record was found off the coast of Massachusetts in 1865, with a diameter of seven feet and tentacles trailing about 120 feet long.

A typical one is about two feet in diameter, and has eight lobes with each lobe containing 70 to 150 tentacles. The tentacles are filled with sticky stinging cells. I never saw my jellyfish, but I believe it might have dragged its tentacles across my ankle. Or most likely, I just waded across the jellyfish.

Human stings are common, and not all that dangerous. Most of the time. The sting is described as a strange sensation, like swimming into warm water. I felt nothing.

So, feeling no pain, it was no big deal. At least at first.

I’m not one to go see a doctor. So I reached back to the one person who was a fountain of wisdom. Mom.

Growing up on Puget Sound, the best concoction for a small cut, burn or jellyfish sting was a good dose of Hydrogen Peroxide. You know it works when it fizzes with white bubbles. That means it is cleaning and healing.

Then, for more serious ailments, go to the healing powers of the salt waters found in bays and oceans.

So that’s what I did. Regular splashes of Peroxide and daily walks in the ocean. Also, leaving it uncovered so it can dry out.

The funny thing is, it wasn’t getting any better. It seemed like the missing flesh wound was getting deeper. And oozing liquid.

One day while healing my ankle with saltwater at Ocean Shores, I came across a couple. She looked at my ankle in horror, and announced she was a nurse. You just can’t avoid medical people for long.

She asked what happened. “Jellyfish sting,” I answered, followed by my homestyle Michael medicine routine.

She cringed. She said the worst thing you can do to such an injury is use Peroxide — it was activating the tentacles’ venom. The only treatment worse is cleaning it with ocean water filled with bacteria and who knows what. Finally, she said such a wound needs to be covered, and a bit of antibiotic ointment.

So I went to work the next morning and showed my wound to a few coworkers. They were aghast, and said I needed to go to the emergency room right away. That wasn’t going to happen. I have carved out a full career ignoring health concerns and filling out critical personal paperwork. I was on newspaper deadline time, for gawd’s sake.

The next day one of my coworkers showed up with a full bag of medical supplies.

That night I proudly put ointment on the wound and covered my ankle with a large adhesive bandage. I was akin to a medical professional.

The next morning I pulled the bandage off, only to find the wound covered with what looked like maggots. That was a bit alarming. I wiped them off, washed out the now gaping wound, and covered it up. I didn’t share the maggots development at work, but said to myself, “If more maggots grow, I might consider going to the emergency room. After a couple more days of maggots, they went away, and after a couple of months, the sting was mostly forgotten. I still have a big scar.

The sad moral of the story: Mom is not always right, and on the rare occasion, sometimes your coworkers and a trained nurse might know what they are talking about. With my newfound knowledge of medical cures, my number is below. Call me if you need some doctoring.

Michael Wagar is the editor of The Daily World. He can be reached at 360-259-7979 and michael.wagar@thedailyworld.