I’ll never forget the day I got the text from my daughter, “Mom come get me I have bugs in my hair” my stomach dropped and panic set in instantly. I ran to the school with a plastic shower cap in my purse and a towel draped over my car seat, my mind running through worst case scenarios the entire way. Then, my poor child. As if the bugs themselves weren’t bad enough, now here is her frantic mother insisting that she put on an ugly pink shower cap in the parking lot in front of the Junior High. She is mortified and I am still in panic mode. As we ventured home my mind was racing. It can’t be lice! Noone gets lice anymore! Maybe it’s just a fuzz or dandruff. Oh my God what if its actually lice. My childhood trauma coming to the surface, the combing, the crying, the loss of my beloved stuffed animals. As soon as we get home I lock up my real animals, God could you imagine if the dogs got it? I throw my own ugly shower cap on and consider setting up outside to check her but then thought better of it, after all what if the neighbors saw?! Once she was sufficiently isolated, I carefully remove the cap I see a louse almost instantly and a mental checklist starts popping off in my head I need to start the laundry, and get the garbage bags, where were we? Who did we see? Where did she sit? Do I need to notify the school? Will she be quarantined? Do I need to call off work for the week? 2 weeks? Ugh I google “lice removal service near me” and call the first name that pops up. The woman sounded…daunting. Treatments START at $150.00 but if they determine that its a “bad case” it goes up another $100 and then it’s reccommended that you treat the whole family, $150 quickly turned into a minumum of $750. Not including the special oils and lice prevention I would need and then “aftercare” would be discussed later. Yikes. I was ready to bite the bullet, what could I do? That is when she informed me that I couldn’t get in until the next day, AND I needed to bring my daughter in with washed, dried, and combed out hair. It occurred to me that at this rate if I needed to get that close to the bugs then I might as well try to handle them myself. When I called to cancel the appointment I was met with judgement and condescension, just what a mother needs in the height of crisis. Either way, I leave my kid with strict instructions not to touch anything, sit anywhere or talk to anyone. I head to Walmart and drop over $175 in every lice removal kit I can find, combs, shampoo and conditioner, Lice prevention spray, gloves, more plastic shower caps, giant garbage bags and a Red Bull for what was promising to be a very long day. Even once I had a plan, the panic would not subside. Should I bag up all of the things first? Start the laundry? Or do I get the treatment on her head started first? Oh no! The hair stuff! Brushes, clips, bows, combs, headbands, oh my! Did I mention I have three little girls with a LOT of hair. I bagged up all the stuffies and got the bedding in the laundry and then the dreaded treatment. When I tell you I combed that childs hair for 11 HOURS. I had a headlamp on and was pulling out lice eggs with my fingernails, because the combs in the kits I bought were nothing on my daughters super thin, fine hair. I had bugs on my shirt, and on my kitchen floor. After 11 hours I knew that there was no way I had gotten them all out, but i also knew that I couldn’t see straight anymore. So I did what any sane person would do. I slathered mayo all over her head and pulled out my trusty plastic shower cap. I took away her pillows and set her up on a nice air mattress. The next morning I was still filling papertowels with lice and nits and I had been through every over the counter kit available. That is when I remembered my good friend Nichole. She moved to Arizona years ago and had started her own Lice removal company, an expert in the subject at my fingertips. I got a hold of her and she immediately shared her proven effective method with me. She gave me a crash course and within an hour my daughter was lice free. No pesticides or stinky mayo (P.S. I’m pretty sure my kid will NEVER eat mayo again). Then I dived into Nichole’s course and methods because I didn’t want other families to go through the panic that I had. I wanted to offer panic stricken mothers the same respite that my friend had shown me. Because that is what we need in those moments, not judgment or condescension but a friend, some grace, and a proven method for being lice free.
