Eww, Lice!

We escaped the Great Lice Outbreak in DB's class last fall, only to get a call this morning to come get him, he had nits. Three, he said the nurse said, and that it was clearly just starting.

By the time we got home and I psyched myself up to do the thing (and read the directions 4 times), I could actually see a few squirmy buggers on his scalp. Yuck!

The descriptions they give you on the health pages didn't really help. I couldn't see any nits at all, and the bugaboos I saw were yes, as long as sesame seed, but half a s wide, and more blackish than greyish.

Eww.

Amazingly enough, DB did really, really good with the whole process, in more ways than one.

Emotionally: It probably helped that we've been discussing the possibility since the fall, his best friends have had lice already, and we've been over and over how it's not a big deal, they're treatable and doesn't hurt. So his anxiety was minimal. There is also an episode of Arthur that was on in probably September that he watched over and over even before the class outbreak, just because it's an amusing episode, and all the families in Arthur's class deal with the issue in a variety of ways but all matter-of-fact and positive. (Click for a thoughtful review of it; the episode is called "The Lousy Week.")

The nurse was also very low-key about it, saying "just 3 nits," which didn't sound like much at all. That helped me not to freak out too! But I still wasn't surprised to see live squirmy lice later when I combed through it. (None at bedtime, though ... fingers crossed!)

On the way home in the car, the first story we told was about what if the penguins on Club Penguin got lice, and when they went to log in they'd get a message saying, "Your penguin isn't allowed on the site right now, he has lice!"

After a few minutes of talk about how they'd buy special shampoo and solve the problem, he was ready to move on to another topic.

Physically: He has some kind of sensory issue with the top of his head: He HATES having his hair combed, hands run through it, his scalp scrubbed.

So here I am with this scenario: Rub the medicated shampoo into his dry hair; leave 10 minutes; lather and shampoo it out; apply gel section by section and comb through his hair meticulously, pinning up each section as I go; then shampoo again. I had no idea how he'd react.

Thank you, Neopets.com and Club Penguin, for keeping him entirely occupied during the entire process (except the shampooing parts)! It was amazing.