Every month is declared national something or other, and if you’re scratching your head about what September celebrated, let me tell you: It’s National Lice Prevention Month.
Yeah, that was a new one for me, too.
The National Pediculosis Association, a nonprofit organization, sponsors it. The word pediculosis was new to me, too. I would have guessed it was a condition caused by too many pedicures. No. It’s a fancy word for lice infestation.
A friend of mine said her adorable elementary age daughter got lice after spending some time in close quarters with a bunch of cousins, who reported later that they had lice. Last week, she said everything in her home was in bags, trying to suffocate the lice, and she had cleaned and cleaned and vacuumed.
I could relate.
Many years ago, when my almost 30-year-old was a toddler, I picked him up at day care one day to be greeted by a serious-looking employee.
“John’s cubbyhole buddy got sent home with lice,” she reported.
I’m sure I gasped. Their little nap pillows were crammed into the same space, so it was obvious there could have been contamination.
I don’t remember if I found the first one and took him to the doctor, or if I just threw him in the car seat and sped off to the pediatrician’s office.
Probably the latter. I do remember the nurse JUMPING when she saw one crawling on his head. By one, I mean a louse.
Lice like clean hair, she said. But that doesn’t stop a mother’s feeling of shame. So, I bought the poison shampoo, packed up his stuffed animals to kill the nits and vacuumed everything in sight.
My brother, now a doctor, was in college. He came for a visit later that day, and he sat on the couch with his arm around his nephew, hugging him close.
“Tell Uncle Shane what’s in your hair,” I said. “’Piders,” my son said. “What?” my brother asked, still loved up to my little boy. I explained that ’piders were lice. My brother drew back, and I’ll never forget the look on his face.
It dawned on me that I had lain down on my son’s bed every night to read to him. Head to head. I was pregnant with our second son at the time, and my hair was as thick as a horse’s mane.
I repeatedly made my brother and my husband go through my hair, and about the 10th time, they sounded the alarm.
I. Had. Lice.
So, my husband washed my hair with the poison shampoo as I leaned my huge pregnant self over the bathtub.
Then my brother sat with me at our kitchen table as he combed through and picked nits — which look like little sesame seeds — out of my wet hair. It was a great bonding experience. We stayed up late, and I told my husband I might not go to work the next day. “Tell them I have a bug,” I said, joking.
I got an email last week, even though September is almost over, from the National Pediculosis Association giving information about lice and locations of Lice Troopers, “urgent-care clinics for lice treatment and prevention.” Literally lice salons. Pediculous pickers, if you will.
The press release talked about how the staff uses all-natural methods to get rid of the lice, instead of the “hazardous treatments” with chemicals like I apparently used.
Most of the clinics are in Florida, so I suggested to my friend that she might want to take a family vacation to visit one. She laughed.
I hope my family never has to deal with a nit problem again. But from now on, I am going to say my son and I had pediculosis, thank you very much. It sounds so much classier than lice.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-5671 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.