The “L” Word

Love?

Well…not quite. There are so many words that can stir emotions or memories the first time they’re uttered: love, (it’s a) girl/boy, pregnant, marry me, pass, fail, positive, negative.

Then there’s one that if you’ve had children, have children, have ever been around someone who happens to have hair, you may be familiar with: lice.

I’m just going to put this out there. We had lice. Yep, I said it. You’re immediately picturing:

Don’t get too smug. Lice love/thrive on clean hair/heads. Yep, the dirty kid probably didn’t give it to you. Anyone can get lice. Lice are as common as the common cold. Raise your hand if you’ve never had a cold…that’s what I thought.

So basically, if you have a child…and I use children as my example because they share hats and headbands, work closely together, hug, wrestle, and are just generally closer to one another’s head; you may encounter lice.

I’m guessing by the severity of our infestations, Ella was ground zero. She may have gotten it from school, VBS, horse camp, church, who knows. It also proves that Ella is less cuddly because Lily and I were mostly spared and Loran was fine.

So here’s how it all went down and the really handy things I learned.

Ella had been scratching her head in one particular place for a few days. Ella still has cradle cap that is masked by her super thick hair, so I thought that may be the culprit. Lily and I have eczema so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Ella was encountering an eczema flare either. But, my mommy senses were aroused and I just felt something was off.

I was checking Ella’s scalp, debating if I should get her some Selsun Blue shampoo or rub some olive oil on her scalp when I found a message board of a mom who experienced something similar. Another poster suggested lice, and turns out, the original poster did write back to say it did turn out to be lice. “Gross,” I thought. No way. I did a scalp check, not really knowing what I was looking for, but, I saw something that looked suspicious. Then I checked Lily and actually plucked one of her hairs, since she’s a little blondie. Then I did the nerdy thing and consulted Google images. Then I did the ultimately nerdy thing and dug out my actual lab quality microscope from my younger nerd days. I prepared a glass slide with my hair specimen, slipped it under the lens, consulted Google images and confirmed my fear: eggs aka: nits.

We made some calls to local lice removal services and because it was a Saturday afternoon, we were worried we might have to tackle it ourselves so Loran set out to buy a lice kit (coincidentally, our local Target was nearly sold-out). Loran and I sat down to start pesticiding their heads when we got a call from Stacey at Fairy Lice Mothers. Praises for that phone call. She was waiting to do a head check on a girl coming home from camp and had time to see us. After seeing what we were up against with Ella’s head, we were happy to load up and head over to their store.

Seriously. What a great idea. It’s set up like a child-friendly salon. With shows and movies for the younger set and a snack bar for everyone’s enjoyment. They check heads, treat heads, and follow-up to make sure you are completely free. You’re left with a plan of attack and lots of information. And, it’s all without harsh chemicals. They use an enzyme and special comb, that is hands-down better than the crappy plastic one that comes in the lice kit. While Lily and I were such light cases that we wouldn’t have required a full treatment, our association with Ella meant we also needed the full work-up. We settled in and had our hair treatment (which actually was like a fancy conditioning treatment and made your hair fabulous). If you could ignore the fact you were being treated for lice, it actually was really relaxing.

While we were there, time sort of didn’t exist. I know we were there for hours, but we just watched shows, chatted, enjoyed snacks, colored, worked on puzzles and were treated, along with a few other clients, ranging in age from preschool to adults. We walked out lice free, with armloads of information, and a plan. Not to mention we had super shiny/silky hair.

Here’s what we learned, which was contrary to everything we did when the daycare I worked at had a lice outbreak…

- Lice cannot live away from a human head for more than 24 hours. So, you can just bag up stuffies, dolls, dress up clothes for a day and you’re good to go. They cannot lay eggs on blankets or stuffed animals, they can’t even infect pets.

- Hot kills lice. You don’t need to wash and disinfect everything. Put your bedding/pillows/stuffed animals in the dryer for a half hour. Good to go.

- Vacuum your carpets/furniture for good measure.

The treatment and cleaning of the house was much easier than I was prepared for. I still washed and dried all of the bedding, but it was nice to not have to bag toys up for weeks and obsess over cleanliness and disinfecting.

We followed our treatment protocol, which involved using our special shampoo and comb every other day until we were cleared after our follow-up checks. Being officially released from treatment was pretty exciting!

While it seems like an extravagance to go to a professional lice service, in the end, it was so worth it. The service was top-notch. The products were not harmful. The process was easy. The education was phenomenal. We left armed with all the products we needed to keep ourselves lice-free (included in the treatment fee), and the treatment is covered under our HSA. (hooray!)

Since I don’t believe in only sharing our family highlight reel, but rather be real; this happened to us. It was gross. It felt shameful. It’s super common. The chances of it happening to anyone regardless of economic status is high. If your head is warm, you’re a great host. You could get it from your airplane seat, a hug from a friend, trying on an article of clothing…anywhere. Lice don’t fly or jump, you just pass them on. They’ve been around forever and they don’t seem to be going anywhere. So while we’re all freaking out that we’re going to catch Ebola (not likely), realize you’re only a head scratch away from being infected with lice (likely).

Raise your hand if you scratched your head more than once while reading this.)

*scritch scritch*

In somewhat related news, Ella now owns her very own helmet for riding horses. It’s bright pink.