Anne TootillTo Be or Not To Be a Mother- Part Three
February 8th 2007 18:02
It was the day before we were leaving for California and I’d been itching for days. My head had been itching like crazy. I’d had a haircut the weekend before and a few days later I started to itch. A few days after that I was blasting my scalp with my blow-dryer because it gave me temporary relief from the incredible itching. Ohmigod, it felt so good even though I could feel my scalp burning.
That day the kids and I went to visit my sister. My nephew was 2 years older than Josh and my niece, 3 years older than that, but they all liked seeing one another. I mentioned the itching to my sister or maybe she saw me scratching like a madwoman. She offered to take a look and see if anything was there.
Now came the good part. You see a couple of years back my niece had gotten lice from a boy she sat next to in class. It’s not that my sister lived in squalor. Far from it. Both she and my brother-in-law were accountants with good jobs. They lived in a nice middle class neighborhood, and the school, and the kids in it, were clean. But as it turned out lice apparently prefer clean. And once those blood sucking parasites invade your life it’s nearly impossible to get them to go.
So she checked my hair by the nape of my neck (remember prior experience had made her a trained professional) and I watched her back away in horror. She had to go sterilize her hands immediately, she told me, as she ran (not walked) into her house. When she came back she gave me the bad news. Yup, I was infested and by the timeline of itching it was probably from the beauty salon I’d gone to for my haircut.
In 24 hours I was going to be on a plane bound for California and I had lice. Oh God. Ick, ick, ick!!!
I gathered the kids together and rushed to the pharmacist who suggested a pesticide to douse my head in. He said I should treat the whole family. But since the kids didn’t have much hair and there was no way I was rubbing pesticide (like I’d ever knowingly expose my asthmatic son, let alone my toddler daughter to pesticides on their scalps) on their heads it was just going to be me and my hubby who got crop- dusted.
So my husband came home from work and we shampooed with that toxic stuff. Then I carefully combed through every strand of my long hair with a delousing comb which has very tight teeth to catch the lice. Every few long strands I ran that comb through. And up to that point I’d been telling myself that maybe my sister was wrong. True she always seemed to be right, but maybe this time. Maybe. Hopefully. And then I checked the comb and there throughout the teeth were dozens of tiny brown bugs. When I looked real close I could see their teeny tiny legs waving frantically as I washed them down the sink and then ran that comb through another few long strands. It took a long, long time to finish my whole head of hair. And I felt like some crazed axe murderer with my eyes bulging as I flushed one combful after another. “Die you suckers! Die!” I screamed having decided that not all God’s creatures were worthy of living. Gross. Gross. Gross!!!!
And then because lice are so insidious (they cling to everything your hair touches) and they can easily reinfect everything over and over again, I had to wash all the bedding and bag the comforters and the pillows until I came home from California and took them to the Laundromat to clean. Then I vacuumed the entire house, including every stick of furniture and the car as well.
And then I started packing for me and the kids. I was not looking forward to this trip. But I knew I had no choice. I had to go.
But you know? I was feeling pretty good. After I used the toxic pesticide on my head, the itching stopped and it was amazing. You have no idea how good it feels not to be infested with lice, until you are. That night, even though I had no pillow and no comforter, I slept better than I had in along time. Amen.
That day the kids and I went to visit my sister. My nephew was 2 years older than Josh and my niece, 3 years older than that, but they all liked seeing one another. I mentioned the itching to my sister or maybe she saw me scratching like a madwoman. She offered to take a look and see if anything was there.
Now came the good part. You see a couple of years back my niece had gotten lice from a boy she sat next to in class. It’s not that my sister lived in squalor. Far from it. Both she and my brother-in-law were accountants with good jobs. They lived in a nice middle class neighborhood, and the school, and the kids in it, were clean. But as it turned out lice apparently prefer clean. And once those blood sucking parasites invade your life it’s nearly impossible to get them to go.
So she checked my hair by the nape of my neck (remember prior experience had made her a trained professional) and I watched her back away in horror. She had to go sterilize her hands immediately, she told me, as she ran (not walked) into her house. When she came back she gave me the bad news. Yup, I was infested and by the timeline of itching it was probably from the beauty salon I’d gone to for my haircut.
In 24 hours I was going to be on a plane bound for California and I had lice. Oh God. Ick, ick, ick!!!
I gathered the kids together and rushed to the pharmacist who suggested a pesticide to douse my head in. He said I should treat the whole family. But since the kids didn’t have much hair and there was no way I was rubbing pesticide (like I’d ever knowingly expose my asthmatic son, let alone my toddler daughter to pesticides on their scalps) on their heads it was just going to be me and my hubby who got crop- dusted.
So my husband came home from work and we shampooed with that toxic stuff. Then I carefully combed through every strand of my long hair with a delousing comb which has very tight teeth to catch the lice. Every few long strands I ran that comb through. And up to that point I’d been telling myself that maybe my sister was wrong. True she always seemed to be right, but maybe this time. Maybe. Hopefully. And then I checked the comb and there throughout the teeth were dozens of tiny brown bugs. When I looked real close I could see their teeny tiny legs waving frantically as I washed them down the sink and then ran that comb through another few long strands. It took a long, long time to finish my whole head of hair. And I felt like some crazed axe murderer with my eyes bulging as I flushed one combful after another. “Die you suckers! Die!” I screamed having decided that not all God’s creatures were worthy of living. Gross. Gross. Gross!!!!
And then because lice are so insidious (they cling to everything your hair touches) and they can easily reinfect everything over and over again, I had to wash all the bedding and bag the comforters and the pillows until I came home from California and took them to the Laundromat to clean. Then I vacuumed the entire house, including every stick of furniture and the car as well.
And then I started packing for me and the kids. I was not looking forward to this trip. But I knew I had no choice. I had to go.
But you know? I was feeling pretty good. After I used the toxic pesticide on my head, the itching stopped and it was amazing. You have no idea how good it feels not to be infested with lice, until you are. That night, even though I had no pillow and no comforter, I slept better than I had in along time. Amen.
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