Lice in Hair?! Nope! Not there!

There's never a dull day at my job, and this Thursday was definitely not an exception. 

I just happened to be finishing up a shopping trip at Target for the family I work for when David calls me to say, "We have a problem." My mind is racing with all the thousands of things it could be. But then he says that the school nurse called and A. has LICE!

U-G-H

Three years ago I helped a family whose kids all had lice at the same time and it was an overwhelming amount of work to get rid of them. Since you never know what they've gotten in to you've got to bag for two weeks (or wash in hot water and dry in HOT temps) all clothes, toys, jackets, pillows, sheets, towels, hats, .... anything and EVERYTHING. Basically your whole house. Then, you have to wash the kids hair with this special shampoo morning and night and nit pick all the lice out. It takes eons of time that no one has! 

But, you've got to do what you got to do right. 

Well, one thing I thought was extra silly was that school policy says the child doesn't have to leave school. (OK - so let's continue to have them in school so they can spread it to others before getting treated?! Whatever)

But, that gave me time to go through Target again and get the lice shampoo as well as new brushes, combs, head stuff, etc for the kids and LOTS of trash bags. Then, I called the housekeeper and broke the news to her. She wasn't feeling well that day and almost cried when I told her what we had to do!
 Then, off to the house where we worked tirelessly trying to get everything washed or bagged before the kids got home. I stuffed the garage full of air tight trash bags! I was exhausted. 

David called a professional lice company and scheduled appts for all the kids for afterschool, so I took them straight there. The goal was for the company to do the first wash and get out as much lice as possible. 

We arrived. The kids sat down in chairs where they were told it would take about an hour so they could choose a movie while getting their hair nit picked! They were happy with that. 5 minutes in to it, the two workers come out to ask me again when the nurse said she saw. I told them. They looked at me and said they'd do a more thorough search, but initial results came back that the kids DIDN'T have lice.

I almost cried

I mean, it is good news. But all that work we had done to now go home and un-do it all! 

For NOTHING!

30 minutes later they came out again and said A. had dandruff. 

No Lice.

UGH

You would think a school nurse could tell the difference. He took me in to see A.'s hair. Even I could tell it wasn't LICE!

Back home we went to unbag.... as I said.... never a dull day! I slept well that night and didn't have fond feelings towards the school nurse. Still don't, actually!