Infested

Thanks to all those that commented on my last post. My friend Joanna discovered lice in Kadon's hair while she was here for her regular Thursday date, and I was shocked. Shock quickly turned to horror, though, when it was quickly discovered that both Jeremy and I were also infested. Kadon's infestation was definitely the most progressed, but the decision was quickly made to shave Jeremy's head to the scalp. I was told by several neighbors to take the razor to Kadon's head as well, but I was completely resistant to removing Kadon's luscious, beautiful locks. While Jeremy's head was being shaved by my neighbor's husband, I set to removing the lice from Kadon's head with a small plastic comb. I removed countless live bugs, and saw thousands more eggs nested into his lovely hair. On a recommendation from yet another neighbor, I slathered both Kadon's and my hair in copious amount of mayonnaise, covered it in a shower cap, and went inside to start assessing the damage to my house. I stripped bed, towels, rugs, stuffed toys, pillows, and clothing from all the bedrooms. I had re-finished the dressers in the boys bedrooms, and so for the previous two days their clothing had been stacked in piles in their bedroom. Rather intent on being thorough, I emptied both dressers of every piece of clothing and threw all the accumulated laundry down the stairwell. When I had completed my task upstairs, I was no longer even able to walk down the stairs. It was full from the bottom to more than halfway up with an ankle deep layer of laundry and bedding. All of these things had to be washed in scalding hot water--I shudder to think of my utility bill next month. My washer and dryer ran nonstop for more than 24 hours, even running through the night. I lost count of the loads of laundry somewhere around 15. Nearly all the pillows in the house--the ones on my couch, almost all the extra pillows from the beds, my dry clean only comforter and pillow shams, the dog pillow--it is all still shut up in dark plastic bags and stashed in closets. These things will remain in storage for two weeks in order to ensure that the bugs have in fact been killed and I have had time to insure that my scalp is clear of the pests. Around 10pm on Thursday night, after I had a chance to vacuum my entire house and all the furniture, my sister in law Janice came over to begin the tedious process of picking nits out of my hair. I rinsed the mayonnaise out, and then put a special lice killing shampoo in my hair. After rinsing it out, she spent two hours methodically checking my hair and removing hundreds of the tiny eggs. The eggs adhere themselves with a waterproof glue to the strand of hair, and are impossible to remove with washing or combing. The must be individually pried from every individual hair shaft. It takes hours, and is incredibly tedious.

Around 2:30 am Kadon woke up and wanted the mayonnaise rinsed from his head. I washed his hair, and upon bleary-eyes inspection, I was hopeful that I would be able to remove the nits without having to shave his head. When morning finally came, I called Jeremy's school to inform them of his absence, and fed the kids breakfast. I remained optimistic about clearing Kadon's head manually until I sat down on the sofa with him in front of me and got a good look at the nits still remaining nested among his hair shafts. It quickly became obvious that I had no chance of removing all of them, and if even one nit gets left behind--it will hatch and the whole process will begin again. I made the painful decision that Kadon's beautiful, luscious curls--the object of praise and adoration for most of his life, and his Dad's pride and joy--had to be removed. I fought back tears as I ran the razor over his scalp.

At this point, the house has been cleared of lice. The boys are clean, and the baby doesn't have enough hair to harbor the pests. I continue to use the lice comb daily, and have struggled to find people to come over and pick the nits out. I am optimistic about getting the pests removed before my impending trip to Utah at the beginning of September. I will diligently check the kids for lice every week for the rest of their lives--lice is horrible, pervasive, and difficult to remove. It's also incredibly communicable, and has no boundaries of class, social status, or cleanliness. It is a common misconception that lice are somehow related to filth or bad hygiene--this is patently false. They are simply parasites, and easily transferable. Hopefully, we are nearly at the end of our first--and last--infestation.