They’re back!

They have no brains, no blood, are microscopic, and are made up of over 99% water and they sting.

What are they?

Sea lice.  They are tiny little jellyfish or stinger larvae that have the same stinging cells (nematocysts) as an adult jellyfish/stinger.

They usually only sting when caught between you and your swimsuit or wetsuit and they become trapped.  Then they fire off their speck sized weapon: a stinger.  About the only way to avoid them is to swim nude.  Not going to happen!

During our trip to Mexico in January I got stung and it turns out I’ve become hypersensitive to them (I’ve gotten stung before).  They usually will go away after a week or two, but I had to take oral steroids to be rid of the critters–or so I thought.  They reared their ugly stingers again two days after we arrived in Poland.

Navigating the international health insurance we are have was easy and they set up an appointment with a dermatologist.  I called on Saturday and the appointment was set up for today, Wednesday.  Think how long you wait to see a specialist in the states.  The doctor was young, female, and saw me precisely at the time of my appointment.  She promises they will completely go away at some point–she didn’t even guess how long.

I did have to share the elevator with a young person who forgot to cover his mouth when coughing, but only for one floor.  I’m hoping the 10 degree weather I stepped out into killed any germs before they incubated.  To make sure I strolled around the medical complex for another 10 minutes and was rewarded with finding a multi-functional coffee machine.

My biggest prize, however, was finding a shiny silver sphere with my image reflected–not only my image, but am image of Poland reflected.  For me, the image is emotional and perfect.

Atmosphere is everything.