So, we’re back to lice again. I’ve been putting off writing this one for a while. What’s it been? Two months? Three?
No, four months.
Four months of on-and-off hell. I will get rid of them for a few weeks and then they’re back again. Twice I took Keira in to the hairdressers to get her hair cut short as a possible deterrent and twice was turned away. You wouldn’t believe it; I certainly didn’t. I sat her down at home prior to each visit and combed it through thoroughly to check. All clear. Then the moment she sits in the chair and the hairdresser takes a quick look, she backs away, holding up the comb surrender-style and says, “I can’t. She’s still infested.”
Such a wonderful adjective, and she hissed it with all the emphasis on the second syllable’s harsh ‘s’ that it deserved. The other patrons turned around to stare at us, which is hard to do when you’re underneath one of those conehead hair dryers. I grabbed our coats and left, leaving her with the best rebuke I could summon:
“I wouldn’t have brought her if I’d known.”
That last time I was so shamed, I came home and cried. I decided a trip to the Doctor was necessary. After all, don’t the treatment bottles all say, “If lice continue after prescribed dosage, please seek professional help.”
Well, I had reached that point. I’d done all I could do, hadn’t I?
My Doctor didn’t see it that way.
“How many people actually get this far along that they seek help?” I asked the Doctor as jovially as I could.
“Not many,” he replied bluntly. Not as many mothers are as slack-assed as you in getting rid of them, I read between the lines of his tone.
Still, he did write a prescription for a certain kind of antibiotic which has the lovely side effect of being toxic to lice if they feed off the bloodstream the drug is in.
It worked, but the victory was hollow. Every spec of dust around the house still got the once-over. Every time Keira raised her hand to her head I would hold my breath. It was exhausting.
We were able to get that haircut, eventually. In the car on the way there, Keira said loudly. “Do I have nits now?”
“No. No. No” I said. “And – uh – let’s not mention that word to our” (very new and in a different mall entirely!) “hairdresser.”
This brings up to last week.
When I found them again.
There is a line in Hamlet which states, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
I’ve been saying that a lot.
It helps.
In between the cursing.
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*That great word comes courtesy of another blogger who has battled this recently and I just had to quote her. But I didn’t link to her, because, well, I don’t want to ‘out’ her either. If she’s reading, she knows who she is 🙂
