The L Word
July 26, 2011No, not lesbians. These L-words are currently camping out in Henry's hair. I WISH there were lesbians in Henry's hair. That would be so much more fun! I bet they'd keep the place really tidy, too.
I'm sure you've figured out by now that I'm talking about lice. You're smart that way.
Henry returned from sleepaway camp happy, worn out, filthy, and itchy. He mentioned that he had asked a counselor about his itchy head, and the counselor had looked at his head and saw the myriad bug bites and naturally assumed that the bites were troubling him. (Kid is festooned with bites. He is more bite than child. Their cabins were outdoors, and obviously he never used the bug repellent we packed for him. Also? It took him a week to find his shirts. His SHIRTS. He wore the same shirt for seven days. Fortunately he found the shirt-stash we had cleverly hidden in his footlocker before the Big Dance. I am glad he did not attend the Big Dance in the same filthy shirt he had been wearing all week. Actually I bet no one would have noticed, because kids are kinda dumb that way. Sorry, kids.) So the lice went unnoticed. Until he got home.
He was complaining and scritch-scratching like mad at his head, so I took a look, as parents will do when their kids are clawing at their scalps. I fervently hope that you guys never have to see the horrors that I saw there. I will be forever haunted by that sight. I'm going to go ahead and guess that he picked up the lice on his very first day there. They had clearly reproduced, and colonized, and erected statues, and then fought a few wars, and buried their dead, and then their children's children's children were told tales of the wondrous planet on which they were so lucky to live, where none of their ancestors had ever suffered from the mysterious Lotions and Combs that had, the stories claimed, felled so many of their kind in centuries hence. Because his scalp was moving. MOVING.
I may never sleep again.
We have coated his scalp in many salves and chemicals, we have been combing and picking nits off of him every single day and will continue to do so until we are satisfied it's all gone/he's in college; we washed and re-washed everything he brought home from camp in the hottest water that wouldn't actually disintegrated the fibers; we've vacuumed and sealed things in plastic and prayed to all of our gods. We even invented some! You can't have enough gods if you want to defeat lice.
I wanted to call one of the famed Lice Ladies of Brooklyn, but Scott thinks that's unnecessary. HAHAHAHAAA he has no idea. Well, he'll learn. Oh, he'll learn.(Or maybe he's right. Maybe.) (We all know I'm right, right? Of course.)
I spent an hour yesterday combing through my own conditioner-coated hair, and although I found nothing, I have to tell you, my scalp is itching like crazy. This is probably not surprising. I should add that my scalp has pretty much been itching ever since lice was rampant in his kindergarten class, two years ago. So it COULD be psychosomatic. Either that or the lice are extremely tricky. And I have been their unwitting host for lo these many years.
No need to give me any advice, as I have read/followed every bit of advice I could find on the Internet and beyond. I just wanted you to share in my horror. There. Now you have it, too. (The horror! Not the lice. I HOPE.)
Reader Comments (75)
Convinced I now have lesbian head lice. May not survive the drum circles or the hummus.*
*No actual lesbians were referenced or harmed for these stereotypes.
head itching now.
I had lice when I was about 14, which is a terrible age to have it. my worst memory of the whole experience though is having mayonaise slathered onto my head
Ugggh, that makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. I think I would barter my other two children to any pagan God that would take them just to get the lice off the one remaining child and, you know, shave him bald.
Good luck and I hear Target has Tide on sale for all that laundry. ;)
my daughter had, what appeared to be, a few nits, several years ago. we treated & prevented & all was well. an unexpected perk was the piss poor behavior my sister aired, over the phone, when i made "the call" aka "hey, we found something & your child was here a few days ago..." not an easy call to make, but the perk was i stopped making lunch plans with my sister after that. my sister, who's behavior towards waitstaff was so rude that i am sure i'd ingested my share of someone's spit in my soup over the years. thanks, bugs!
Your story is the stuff of my nightmares. You have my deepest sympathy. We had a scare (although thankfully no actual lice) earlier this year in my daughter's preschool, and I have sprayed her hair with the Fairytales repellent spray (per our pediatrician's office staff recommendation - those ladies see a lot of lice and don't get it themselves. They have to be doing something right) and braided her hair every school day since.
And you are totally right to call the Lice Lady. I was itching just reading this.
Sending lots of positive, lice-free vibes your way!
When I was a little girl and had lice, my mom took us to the grocery store for something (my poor mom) and I proudly announced to the check out woman "We have lice!" (My mom had bought me a stuffed dog so I think I thought it was a good thing)
Oh YUCK! We had lice for the first time this year and it was sooooooooo disgusting. We bathed her and combed her and picked and washed and washed and washed. It is amazing to me that not only did the adults in the house not get it, the 5 year old - who likes to steal her older sister's blankets - did not get it. Also, "finding every last nit" is the classic example of proving a negative. Good luck!
I WISH THERE WERE LESBIANS IN HENRY'S HAIR.
I want that t-shirt.
You are brilliant.
Hi, Alice! I sympathize and I have a little knowledge to impart. We had a (in retrospect) fairly minor run-in with lice when my daughter was 6 but I had to treat it as if it was major BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW. In addition to the chemical shampoo and the endless picking (because the combs didn't actually get the nits, only fingernails seemed to work), we did twice daily head soaks with Listerine (the amber kind) for the first few days. We washed all her bed linens and her car seat cover and used Lysol on the couch, etc. And then, THEN!!, I put drops of tea tree oil in her spray conditioner and on her backpack and coat to repel them for the future (and trained her to stuff her coat in her backpack at school, NOT on the coat hooks EVER). I later read that cinnamon oil is also a repellent so I switched to that, because it smells much better. A few drops on her backpack and the tag in her jacket every month or so. Knock on wood, we've been okay ever since. My son did not get it; if he had, I would have shaved his little head in a heartbeat, especially after knowing what a bitch it is to pick nits. *shudder* And yes, I psychosomatically itched for WEEKS. And made my friends itch when they heard the story. Funny how that works...
Oh, wait! One more thing I learned. The reason adults rarely get lice is because they use hair products. Lice like clean hair best. So I also put hairspray on my daughter in the morning. It can't hurt. I figure the more things in my arsenal, the better.
PPS
I know you didn't ask for advice but I could not help myself. Also, because I often find your reader's comments to be helpful (and funny: Lori, cracking up about your sister!) I wanted to throw my "knowledge" out there in case it helps someone else. Especially the part about prevention. I'll stop commenting now. :)
As a teacher of >300 children of the most grubby possible age (3-7), trust me when I say...
Be thankful it wasn't pinworms!
I'll let you Google that on your own when you're good and ready - which I hope is never.
I may have to change careers.
LAUGHED MY ASS OFF at your descriptions!! Then giggled my way through the reading of this to my husband. My god woman.........you're funny!!!
Oh man does that suck! It's funny because I was just watching the lice episode of South Park last night. Even if you aren't into South Park, I think you'd find it pretty hilarious. And humor is necessary when dealing with lice, I think!
freelance writer
I've been reading all these hysterical comments, and I just have to add a little bit of sanity here. Yes, lice are a total pain in the ass, but... First, we all need to remember that, aside from causing an itchy scalp, lice are completely harmless. This is not a death sentence. Second, calling everyone who has come into contact with the infested person is completely unnecessary. Lice are everywhere, and there is no way to notify every person who may have come in contact with a louse. Unless your child was in extremely close contact with another kid (sharing towels, sleeping in the same bed, etc.), skip all the notifications. Third, because lice are everywhere, there's really no way to know for sure where you got it. So skip the blame and recriminations. Fourth, the CDC and many other sources say that all the extreme housecleaning is pretty much worthless. There is little to no evidence that people catch lice from carpets and furniture. Fifth, children do not need to be quarantined until every last nit is gone. It's ridiculous for a child to miss a month of school over harmless lice. We're not talking about the spread of swine flu or something. And last, the idea that the surest way to get rid of lice is to bomb your kid with chemicals is totally false. There is so much resistance to the chemicals now that smothering methods (oil, mayo, Cetaphil) are more reliable, as well as less toxic.
Oh camp! My husband directed a summer camp for 10 weeks 2 years ago. Somehow it wasn't until we left camp that we noticed that the girls' hair was moving...Both girls have heads of thick, curly, long hair. We waged a FOUR MONTH battle with those freakin' suckers. At one point I seriously debated the merits of shaving their heads versus the copious amounts of money I would have to later spend in therapy for the girls when they sobbed about their mean mom. The girls were 2.5 and 5 at the time. WORST AGE EVER to deal with hours and hours of nit picking.
I feel your pain.
My daughter had lice two summers ago, when she was 10, and we both still have terrible memories of endless picking and combing, plus she now has an instant aversion reaction to anything with mayonnaise, thanks to having her head smothered in it. (Pro tip: Don't do this. I had to buy a new shower curtain and the bathroom smelled like old mayo forEVER.) I would much rather have had lesbians come to visit for a couple of weeks!
Hi Alice
Around the time my son Re was five months old, we had a nanny who turned out to be a lice extravaganza. When I found my son itching his scalp (and the poor thing has my dense and curly hair, so all the more room for them lice to hide in), I was horrified. Soon, the whole family was itching away. I tried to disinfect the nanny with chemicals and lotions, but she had bred four generations of them already, and they weren't going anywhere. So I finally told her to take a week off, do something and come back.
She came back with her head shaven, very Sinead O' Connor. I was impressed with her commitment. I shall never lose her, I told myself.
But the memory of those itchy days still haunts me, and I turn into this paranoid lice hunter every time Re even touches his scalp!
I'm pretty sure that lice can travel over the internet, because my head is itchy after reading this. Excuse me while I go dunk my head in chemicals, just to be safe.
Terrifying. Thanks for keeping it real, mom-wise.
That was such an awesome combination of completely hilarious and completely repulsive! I want to know who the lice ladies of Brooklyn are, but I am too scared to Google lice-related topics. Also...the earlier comment about getting rid of lice on a movie theatre seat? UGGGHHHH, I am going to the movies tonight and that image will haunt me! I will get a stiff neck holding my head up the whole time.
SHAVE THE HEAD!!! SHAVE THE HEAD!!! SHAVE IT ALL OFF RIGHT NOW! I AM SO FREAKED OUT. After my daughter got lice, we moved.
I totally have to agree with Sarah about the lice vs. bed bugs. I personally got lice while teaching in Japan back in the 90s and boy was I horrified! Plus I had to get a colleague to help me translate the problem to the doctor, pharmacist, etc. who gave me some powder that was supposed to chase them away! It didn't. My mom eventually fedex-ed me some strong chemical stuff from home that did the job, along with a lot of personal nit picking.
Anyhoooo, we had a bed bug scare after travelling recently and boy are those suckers about 1000 times worse! They can live up to a year without eating and then come back and feed on you while you're sleeping and then have lots of babies.
But you still totally have my sympathy on the lice. I kept my nit comb for many years after the episode and periodically checked my hair whenever my head was itchy.
I've had lice twice. The second time was my freshman year of college. I found out because I was idly scritching my head during my biology lab and one of the little suckers was stuck to my finger when I pulled my hand away. So, naturally, I stuck it under the microscope that we were using to look at pond water. OMG. COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER LOOKED AT UNDER A MICROSCOPE!!! You might not think so. But it was awesome! They're translucent and so as I looked at it it's little legs were going like mad and I could see my blood pulsating through its little body! It was so cool that I almost think I would be willing to suffer through it again if I had the chance to look at one again. Probably not though. They are a pain in the ass to get rid of. Though I didn't find it terribly difficult. Just time consuming. I had hip length hair at the time and that didn't help.