“Your daughter has lice.” Those four words can strike fear into the heart of anyone, especially a parent with a fear of bugs and a tendency toward neuroses. Lice bugs are an unseen foe, which is where their power originates. They are also hard to eradicate.
Mention a lice infestation, and whoever you’re talking to will take a step back and, in short order, start scratching their head and shivering in disgust. You instantly think you’re crawling with them even if you haven’t been exposed.
My daughter had lice in second grade. I treated her, but I couldn’t shake the fear that we were all crawling with the buggers. I called a service called the Lice Lady. A woman came to the house and checked everyone. She told me that we didn’t need to use Rid shampoo and that it would just hurt my daughter’s hair. Instead, she said to comb out her hair daily to ensure I hadn’t missed any bugs or eggs. Ruled by irrational fear during the ensuing weeks, I imagined lice crawling over every cloth surface in the house. No matter what I told myself, I couldn’t eliminate the creepy feeling. When I went to work, I imagined my colleagues looking at me and seeing bugs crawling in my hair. I couldn’t stop scratching, feeling them crawling all over me. Yes, I knew it was irrational, but that didn’t stop my vivid imagination. The Lice Lady said that you must start over again if you miss one egg. I called her so often with my fears that she stopped answering the phone.
The internet is a blessing and a curse. I read about the history of lice, their behavior and survival skills, and the multiple ways to eradicate them. I looked at pictures to find out what I was looking for, a terrible idea and found the images worse than the real thing. I never saw a live bug in my daughter’s hair, but I saw the eggs.
I discovered that lice cannot burrow, fly, or jump, live up to 30 days, prefer to lay their eggs at the nape of the neck and behind the ears, and die when exposed to temperatures greater than 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I feared I would miss one egg and reinfest the whole house.
I refused to sit on a chair with a cloth surface for months. I would only sit on wood or metal. I checked my daughter’s hair every day for a month. Then I checked it every other day, and so on. I checked my own, too. Our hair had many short flyaways because the lice comb broke them off. I stopped lying down with my daughter when she went to sleep. Instead, I sat on the top of her bunk bed ladder. I nuked all our bedding in the dryer on high heat every morning. Our clothes were tight, and our pants were too short from the hot water and high heat. Her best friend got lice at the same time. Her mother took all the mattresses outside and vacuumed and sprayed them. I read that tea tree oil got rid of them and used that as well. Even today, the smell of it makes me sick to my stomach. I read that lice like straight, fine, clean hair. I also read they don’t like sticky hair spray or other products. My daughter has beautiful hair, but I made her wear it in a ponytail with scads of hair spray every day for years.
In seventh grade, my daughter got lice again. This time, I used the Rid shampoo, combed her hair out, and bagged pillows, stuffed animals, and blankets, which I never reintroduced into our home. I wasn’t as neurotic the second time, although some people wouldn’t agree. The real issue this time was that I was older and more tired. Exhaustion won out most days. I made my husband let me check him for lice because I was paranoid he would give it to me. And then the worst happened: I got lice. But I didn’t carry on about it for months due to my old, tired, exhausted state. I was paranoid for a long time that we hadn’t gotten rid of them, but not enough to use Rid, vacuum the whole house multiple times, and nuke our clothes on high heat for months.
However, since the first lice incident, if anyone scratches their head, I look very closely and watch for bugs, looking at the scratchee as an enemy to my peace of mind. Surprisingly, after writing this, I’m only scratching occasionally and have not succumbed to the urge to check behind my ears for eggs. What a disgusting thought. Now, I won’t borrow a hairbrush, in or out of the family, try on a hat, or buy anything from a used clothing store. Anything can be a lice-spreading vehicle, as far as I’m concerned. Instead of a lice lady, I’m the Lice Police. I’ve threatened my daughter with a short haircut if she ever sneaks those buggers into our house again.
For more information about lice, see Parasites – Lice from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.