Did you miss yesterday?
We kicked off the Mama Drama installments yesterday with our family’s LICE outbreak, Day 1! Loathsome lice! The saga wraps up today.
So this is what happened after all the Voxer back and forth of Friday morning and afternoon.
I got lice. The baby also got lice. So, so far, we were three for five. But I just went ahead and treated all of us like we have lice.
I went to pick up Will for a doctor’s visit at school near the end of Friday and Lillie’s teacher was amazing. She reiterated that clean heads get lice more easily (WHY IS THIS FACT NOT MORE WELL KNOWN!?!?!), and she said she goes through it every single year (she’s been teaching 25+ years). She sent home the name of a company we could use if we couldn’t get rid of them that makes that their job. I was willing to hire anyone if I couldn’t kick it over the weekend.
We slept in the promethium cream overnight.
I just slathered us all down and bagged up our heads. Like a bad SNL skit.
I did 14 loads of laundry in the first 24 hours. Bagged up every doll, throw pillow, stuffed animal, anything with a stitch of hair of fabric and I put it all the garage. I ripped out every rug and pulled it outside and beat it and vacuumed it. I vacuumed the whole house on Friday. On Saturday. On Sunday. I changed every single bedsheet on Friday. On Saturday. On Sunday.
Saturday morning, because my hubby and the baby left town for the farm, my sweet eldest child sat in the backyard picking my hair with the lice comb.
He kept saying, here’s another one mommy, and showing me the comb.
Aggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.
I will forever be scarred.
Sunday, the other medicine which had disappeared from the shelves in Houston mysteriously arrived. So I went to buy that to treat us again, just in case. It was $130 a tube AFTER insurance. That’s right: ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS ($360 without insurance – no wonder people get stuck in a lice cycle).
So I only purchased one tube and split it between Lillie and I because we were the ones who apparently really got the loathsome lice. I returned an adorable dress I’d bought and purchased the lice cream instead. To add insult to injury. Because, of course.
Then I slathered the new cream on our two heads and we sat with the pungent odor filling up the bathroom.
Every time anything scratched, I freaked out. Knowing they weren’t all gone.
One of my best friends texted me to apologize for missing her and her husband’s double date with us. This was my text response.
ME: Well there would have been no double date because the Vincents are in the middle of their first hellish LICE outbreak. So far, L brought it home from school yesterday and now the baby and I have contracted the little buggers. We have prescription strength medicine which kills all eggs and lice overnight (we sleep in it) and all stuffed animals and any toy with hair have been bagged and put in the garage for two weeks and all the throw rugs and pillows are gone and all the sheets and bedding are going through scalding cycles with high heat dry. AGGGGGGHHH!
BFF: OMG. I have heard about this nightmare – I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry. I can’t think of a worse welcoming to a new school. If there is anything I can do, please let me know. I could run some errands for you or something? How long does it take to get rid of lice?
ME: Apparently they will all be dead tomorrow – unless I missed a spot somewhere in our home, but they can’t live off humans for long and I have cleaned from stud to frame.
BFF: Are the bugs dead and gone? I still cannot believe you had to deal with this during the second week of school. Maybe we can get together?
ME: There are no words for the horror. First of all, we contracted lice in our first week of school. NO one is going to want to be our friend! Then the past 24 hours have been awful. I’ve done 14 loads of laundry. Bagged and bagged. The kids rooms are bare but books, and the garage is full (for two weeks). Curtains pulled down. Rugs pulled out. I vacuum every day. I pulled the sheets and pillowcases this am and rewashed and am going to do that every day for a week along with the washing.
B left for the farm so this morning S ever so patiently lice combed my hair after we washed out the prescription shampoo from overnight. And he found numerous eggs. He was meticulous. He appears to have escaped but we treated him anyway. Eggs take 10 days to hatch so you can’t let up. I’m horrified and exhausted. Then my babysitter didn’t show to babysit for L, so I had to drop S at a boys only birthday party and then hang at Target with L, asking one of the moms I just met to watch out for S. I am near tears.
The loathsome lice did die.
There was another outbreak in 1st grade during the spring that had me in hives. God bless, we did not contract it. I think God knew I couldn’t take two episodes in one year. I’m just not that strong.
In a four week period that August, one or more of the kids had infected lymph nodes, school starting, a urinary problem, colds, lice and the culmination with mass strep throat. Because of course. Serious mama drama.
It’s August again. School is starting next week. We’ve had one tonsillectomy already. To say my nerves are on edge would be an understatement.
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