What a day
Here I sit, eating a Yoplait Whips! Chocolate Mousse Style chocolate raspberry yogurt, hoping food in my belly will quell the evening nausea. These are really quite good (and alcohol free).
Right after my son got picked up by the bus this morning, I called his doctor to see if he could get an appointment to see what was wrong with his itchy head. I had looked and saw some sores, but I couldn't find anything else. So had my husband. We even tried Head and Shoulders shampoo on him last night. I got an appointment late this morning. It left time for me to take J to her preschool (even though it isn't her regular preschool day--I only send her three of the available four days a week) in order to get a pumpkin with her classmates from the "patch" outside the church her preschool is held in. She did a little craft while she was there and it involved paint. I ended up with some of the paint on my shirt.
We had to go home so I could change before we got my son for his appointment, meaning we entirely missed playgroup this week (playgroup is at a church right near the preschool's church, and not very close to my house).
As you've probably guessed, my son's doctor appointment revealed a case of head lice. We had to get medicine for that at the drug store. Then I had to put in a call to my ob/gyn to find out if I could apply it/use it myself to be certain I don't have it/use some spray around the house. It was the end of the business day before I found out the chemical was okay as long as I didn't take anything orally. Meanwhile I had a lot of bedding to wash.
The toilet fill valve completely died this morning. It was squirting water all over and refusing to shut off. Fortunately I had bought another one when I got the toilet flusher replacement thing at the hardware store yesterday. I had to change that, and it took a long time because it was so hard to get the old one off.
The city housing people who pay most of our new rental property's tenant's rent called because they had misplaced one of the forms we sent them and they needed my husband to sign something before they'll begin sending the rent to us. Fortunately, I was able to direct them to him and they got him in.
My daughter peed three times on the floor. Every time I got busy trying to fix some problem she's pee and tell me how sorry she was.
This evening I've been washing everything washable in my son's room. I'm still working on it. Tomorrow I get to wash the stuff out my my kids' hair (the doctor said to ignore the instructions and leave it in for 8 to 12 hours). Then I get to fine-tooth comb my son's head. Finally, I'll have to drive him to school (late--after the crowds are gone), and take him to the clinic along with the used bottle of medicine (insecticidal hair rinse). If they find nits, he goes back home and I comb him some more and we try again.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a boring day. I like them best. Excitement seems to be caused by trouble mostly.
4 Comments:
Interesting about the nits. I have read that in America they still do head checks in class. Is that true? Over here there is no exclusion, your kid could be sitting next to a kid who is crawling in lice, scratching all day etc. The teacher is not allowed to check that child and neither is the school. You don't have to prove that you are lice free before returning to school either.
The lice over here seem to be resistant to a lot of chemicals. When S was younger we had a few run-ins with lice. I found that smothering their hair in conditioner all night and fine combing in the morning helps loosen the eggs and lice (as well as using the chemical washes) I'd pop conditioner on S's head a few hours after treatment and get her to sleep in it. Repeat every two days for two weeks until the cycle is broken. Also I found out that lice are killed by heat. Over here most people wash their clothes and bedding in cold water and we don't iron sheets, pillowcases etc. So I spent a month ironing all my bed linen as well as treating it. Also if you have any of those bags that you can store things in and suck all of the air out of put all of his soft toys, hats etc in there and suffocate them. Lice can't live for long off their host and 3 days in a vacuum seems to kill them off nicely :-)
Happy nit hunting lol
Take care
Angela! How awful for you! You have my deepest sympathies. I used to have the WORST problem with lice. My mom or Mema would have to go through my hair strand by strand. That took HOURS. I hated it. I hope you have an easier time! Although, one time, I just had Alan pour kerosene in my hair. I don't reccommend this unless as a last resort!
Brilly,
When I brought my so in to the schools's health clinic today, they told me they had checked all the kids' heads in his class and everyone was found lice-free. So, yes, they check heads. Why on Earth can't people check heads in Australia? Isn't it a public health issue?
We actually used the equivalent of an insecticidal conditioner all night in my son's hair. Since I combed out two live lice this morning, I called the doctor. She told me to repeat the treatment tonight, and that we are using the correct chemical. I'm to treat him every night until the next day I don't comb out anything alive. Hopefully everything will be dead and/or gone by tomorrow.
I haven't resorted to ironing yet, but I did switch the washer to hot (I'll just ignore the stains it sets and the colors it fades), and I'm running things in the dryer extra long. It that doesn't work, I'll try your suggetion of ironing the sheets (yuck).
We put his two favorite stuffed toys in the washer and dryer (due to pee errors, we've had to do this to them before). I threw out his pillow and gave him the new one I was saving for myself. I don't have any vacuum bags, but I'll try a zip lock bag for 14 days if I need to.
The one good thing about all this is my husband and I kicked the kids out of their room, and pretty much dumped everything under their beds. We got rid of a LOT of stuffed animals. The few things we kept, we sprayed with insecticidal spray.
I don't imagine we'll use kerosene, Amber. For one thing, we don't have any. I'd beg to get lindane (Kwell) shampoo first. My brother used it when he was a kid and got lice. It works very well, but now is considered to be far too toxic to use on lice when other things usually work.
If we have to resort to anything very nasty, I'm sure my husband will handle it since I'm trying to avoid toxins during my pregnancy.
Brilly, today I see no humor in your wishing me happy nit hunting. Perhaps it will be funny when they are dead and gone. Right now I'm just annoyed and frustrated. It's too soon to know if we got them, but everyone is full of stories about how hard they are to get rid of.
Moon-Spinner, I'll be sure to run my hair dryer on its highest setting when I do my hair next Sunday (the only day I blow it dry). I sure don't want any lice. I can't really do it to the kids since I don't want to burn them and they aren't old enough to use the dryer themselves.
I'm sorry Angela, I promise never to lol at your nit plight again. Scouts honour :-)
I think that over here the teachers aren't allowed to check the kids for a couple of reasons. The first is that teachers aren't allowed to actually touch your child. One of D's teachers kissed him a few weeks ago. I could write to the education dept and complain about that teacher if I felt strongly about it.
The other reason is to do with shaming children for something they have no control over. The kids don't buy the nit treatment and treat themselves. It is up to the parents and if you have slack parents there is no point in shaming the child over and over.
What they do if they suspect a child has nits they send a letter home to the whole class saying that someone has lice and we'd like everyone to do a head check. We also have set weekends during the year when they try to get the whole school done over one weekend. But again it's up to the parents to actually do it on that weekend.
I hope my explanation made sense and sorry once again for lol-ing.
Take care
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