Will seemed better this morning. No fever. Happy. Energetic. Cute. He asked to go to school. After some discussion, we obliged. Paul dropped him off and picked him up. I worked. Had meetings. Will came home and had a long nap. Cuddled with Kate. Went to the playground. Had tickle fights with me. Then, a few minutes before 5pm, school called.
“We had an incident with the preschoolers.”
Pediculus capitis. Head lice. Found on one of Will’s classmates, who shares the infestation with his or her older sybling, whose primary school noticed it earlier in the day. Oh. My. God. I looked down. Will was nose to nose with his sister, giving her butterfly kisses and making her giggle. With a deep breath, I bent down and parted his hair.
Were those brown specks… dirt??
We found this picture and thought it resembled the possible dirt. I freaked out, drove immediately to the Walgreens located roughly 500 yards from my house, picked up a three step treatment, and rushed home. Within 30 minutes of the phone call, Will was sitting with treatment shampoo on his head. 
Poor guy. He was afraid from the commotion, not entirely feeling well (he’d had a big day), and now was being subjected to hair combing. (Did I mention his hair is on the longish side because he needs a haircut?)
Am I going off the deep end?
Anyone out there have experience with headlice? And what do we do about the school? AAP and others recommend against “no nit” policies. But how do we prevent a repeat and make sure that this infestation dies off? I’m curious as to how other folks would feel in my shoes.
Violet | 22-Oct-06 at 5:00 pm | Permalink
Yep, you are over-reacting but I understand why this gives you the willies. Lice happens with kids now that we don’t bombard our schools with DDT, which is a good thing if you think about it. My kids got multiple cases of it during early elementary school (in affluent Ann Arbor); we did the Qwell treatment and lived through it. Your clothes dryer gets hot enough to kill the buggers, so put all the bedding and soft toys in the dryer for 30 minutes on high to make sure. It’s really important that the kids who brought them in to the school are not made to feel like lepers, they probably got it from siblings who brought it home from grade school.
Holly | 22-Oct-06 at 9:52 pm | Permalink
Thanks, Violet! Excellent suggestions and comments. I think it completely freaked me out because I believed a lot of myths about lice and was worried that it would be similar to getting rid of fleas. We had serious head lice problems with the shelter I worked with in Virginia and I think the whole experience left me wounded. Your thoughts really help me to feel better about it and feel more confident that I will be able to handle it more effectively when the issue truly hits home!